


Who ya gonna call?

by Axolotl7



Series: Fluffy one-shots - Six Months May was "Away" from Shield [7]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Feels, Fluff, Gen, Team Bonding, Team Feels, Team as Family, mama may
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-29 08:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 28,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5122103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Axolotl7/pseuds/Axolotl7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>.</p><p><em> Melinda May, did you just drunk dial me?</em><br/> </p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a name he hasn’t seen on his call screen in weeks. Well… not incoming anyway. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s punched up her details fully intending to call her… just because… and then lost his nerve.

He can’t believe she’s actually calling him.

He hadn’t dared to think that she might. After all the lies and the deception and _everything_ a part of him thought maybe she was gone for good; that this time she wouldn’t be popping back into his life with that wry twist of a smile to her lips and a raised eyebrow that criticised him silently for ever doubting. He hopes to see that eyebrow criticising him in person-

He grabs for the phone, clumbsily punching repeatedly to accept the call in panic as he realises that it’s been ringing a while and may well be about to ring off.  
He’d be devastated if he missed her call.

“Phiiiiiiillll?” the slow whine that comes over the line has him immediately awake and sitting bolt upright in bed. Melinda May does not whine.

“Melinda, where are you?” he asks urgently, throwing back the covers as he tries quickly to remember who is where, what planes are currently in this base’s hanger, which he can scramble fastest to get to anywhere - “Are you hurt?” – proper medical supplies, room to treat, vertical take-off ability could be essential, Morse and medics – “Melinda, talk to me!” – the silence on the other end of the line is very worrying, he drags out the drawer with slightly more force than necessary, catching it just before it falls out onto the floor – “Tell me what’s happening” - shoving it back in slightly and grabbing for the top pair of bottoms, faster is better, so a dart craft, essentials only, he needs to get to her now – “Melinda! Where the hell are you!?”

“I hate you.”

He stops in place. Blinks twice. 

“What?”

“I said that I hate youuuuu,” she says again very clearly although the words are slightly slurred but the words don’t quite make sense to his adrenaline fried brain even as he tries to slow everything down to actually think his way around this problem.

“Melinda?”

“I hate you. Aaaaannnd you’re stupid. And you didn’t apologise AT LENGTH like you said you would… and… and… you’re mean,” she says and he falls back to sit on the edge of the bed gobsmacked as she continues on with her explanation of his failings, which appear to primarily centre around him being mean and not apologising, the ‘at length’ part is obviously something of an additional annoyance as she emphasises that every time through her repetitive moan.

“Melinda,” he tries to interrupt her spiel after a while but she continues on seemingly oblivious. After several more ‘Melindas’ which she similarly ignores he pulls out the big guns – he is far too tired to be wanting to miss more sleep hearing her drunken rambling even if it is good to hear her (admittedly slightly slurring) voice again. “AAAGENT MAY! ATTEN-sion!”

She stops immediately. There’s silence on the line for a space of a moment of breath. Then a quick succession of staccato steps of heels against hard pavement he assumes as she struggles to keep her feet underneath her. Then a dull thud, almost silent groan and quiet “Fuck!” that he can’t help but smile at. 

“Melinda… did you just fall over?”

“Shut up.”

“Melinda… are you drunk?” he asks with false astonishment.

“Noooo,” and the level of sulk in that voice must pass some kind of record. Oh yeah, she is soooo definitely drunk. He grins and shuffles backward up to the headboard so that he can relax properly on the bed, plumping cushions quickly behind his back. He is soo going to enjoy this!

 

“Melinda May, did you just drunk dial me?”

 

 

x


	2. I'm NOT drunk!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The usual argument about whether one is drunk... only a little more unusual in Melinda's case!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Devilgrrl who this time has managed to beta even whilst she's poorly sick :(
> 
> Everyone wish her better and you will get more fics that make more sense sooner!

Chapter 2 – I am not drunk.

 

“I’m not drunk. I’m not even get drunk. I’ve like …. toblerance and … things.” She’d been reassuring him of the same frankly obvious lie for the past few minutes notwithstanding his attempts to interrupt . 

“Melinda-“

“No really, Phil. I’m fiiiiiiiiiiinnne .” 

“Melinda…” he starts calmly. Patiently.

“I’m fiiiiiinnnne.”

“You’re drunk.”

“M’not.”

“You are and you do get drunk. I admit it’s been a while but-“

“Never,” she declares adamantly. Oh if he was only at the other end of this phone call with her he’s certain he’d be entertaining himself right now laughing at an adamantly proclaiming, probably weaving, drunken Melinda May.

“Okay… pat your head and rub your belly,” he challenges.

He flinches as the phone is presumably dropped to a hard surface, hopes whatever Fitz did to improve everyone’s handsets is up to the challenge of a drunk Melinda May. It’s a tough order but hey, the boy is a genius. 

He hears some light swearing. Calls her name a few times to which she doesn’t respond.

Eventually she comes back on the line. “Did you do it?” he can’t help but ask.

“Yes,” she confirms simply. Probably honestly too. Damn it.

 

“Okay, the last time you and Natasha were drinking do you remember what happened?”

“Huh?”

“Do you remember waking up at the knock on the door, sending me to take delivery from a *highly* embarrassed delivery man of and I quote a “shit load of tampons”?”

“Nooooooooooo.”

“Well you did.”

“Did not.”

“No, you really did.”

“Didn’t.”

“Melinda, it’s a simple matter of fact.”

“Well… why.”

“Why what?”

“Whhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyyy… would I do that?”

“It was Halloween.”

…

“You’d decided that they looked like little ghosts .” 

…

“And then you *haunted* everyone in the base.”

…

There’s a rustling. Far, far too much rustling.

“Melinda?” He questions suspiciously.

“Huh,” is her simple yet unenlightening response.

“Melinda?” He tries again.

“WoooOOOOooo,” she then ‘woos’ down the line. Oh god, please don’t tell him that Melinda is pretending to be a ghost. NOT in public. Not with very probably PEOPLE about, normal human average people. Not when he’s no hope of getting there to record this amazingly wondrous turn of events!

“Melinda?” Third time lucky right?

“They do look like ghosts!” She proclaims with almost childish excitement . 

 

He lets her have her moment with the ‘ghost’. He REALLY wishes he knew where she was so that he could hack a video feed to record for posterity but she’s so far resisted telling him even on what continent she’s currently drinking. But eventually he’s going to have to convince her that, yes, she is indeed drunk and in order to do that he’s going to have to convince her that yes, she does GET DRUNK. 

“Okay… well… do you remember when you blew up Fury’s private bathroom?”

“Don’t try ta kid a kidder, Phil”

“What?”

“Don’t try ta kid-“

“Yes, I heard you. What I meant was… what do you mean when you say don’t try to kid a kidder?”

“Means don’t trick me!”

“I know that, what I mean. You know what, never mind. Do you remember the bathroom?”

“I ‘member you blew it up. Not me!”

He lets the long low sigh overtake him. He’d got the blame for it sure. Fury had not been a happy pirate . 

“Come on Mel, don’t you remember you and Clint and Natasha deciding that you needed to hide the left over explosives somewhere and I quote ‘Fury would never have searched’ after the pranks you pulled on fourth of July?” 

“Noooo.”

“And then one of you coming up with the frankly insane idea of hiding them in Fury’s private bathroom?” 

“Nooo.”

“Or the fact that, after it exploded, Fury marched through the base threatening to destroy whoever was responsible for the ‘shit in his office?!?’ And then having EVERYONE scheduled to sit through his new lie detector machine?”

“Nooooooo.”

“Do you remember which of the three of you decided in your absolute wisdom that the only way to properly fool Fury’s lie detector was to ‘forget’ that any of you had anything to do with that?”

“Nooo.”

“And do you remember drinking so much of Tasha’s stashed emergency supplies that you all threw up, passed out and could barely remember your own names the next morning?”

…

“And do you know WHY you don’t remember any of this happening? Or the poor agent that sat nervously giving a false positive on Fury’s lie detector test and then had to clean up your mess while the three of you spent the rest of the week feeling sorry for yourselves ?” 

…

“You DON’T remember any of this because you were blind DRUNK! So, believe me Melinda when I say you DO get drunk, you CAN get drunk and indeed you ARE NOW DRUNK!”

…

…

“Might be a bit dwunk... leeeeettle bit.”

 

 

x


	3. Question Time with Phil Coulson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm poorly and drunk May makes me feel better so... nother chap.

Chapter 3 – Question Time

 

“So...” he starts, playing for time whilst he organises his mind into just what questions he should be asking her in precisely what order to get the most out of this incredible opportunity – Melinda May rarely converses at length. She hardly ever converses on personal topics. She certainly never converses at length on personal topics unless she is drunk. Melinda May has not been properly drunk in what feels like forever! Tipsy often, slightly buzzing regularly enough, inebriated enough that he can possibly wheedle some answers out of her on occasion. Drunk enough to call him up slurring to tell him that she hates him...? Once before this. Okay, okay twice but the other time he’s pretty sure she was joking and well even if she wasn’t he can be the bigger man (hard to be the smaller woman when compared to Melinda) and admit that he did kind of deserve it after-

“SoooooOOOOOOooooo?” her voice interrupts his thoughts before he’s even managed to think of one question never mind the appropriate order, intonation and presentation to keep Melinda talking throughout all of them as he winds up to the big biggies that he frankly could do with her answering rather than hanging up, which she’s almost certain to do if he asks wrong. Oh, he knows Melinda May.

“Soo...” he tries dragging it out as long as he has breath and yeah that doesn’t really buy him much more time to think of the best question to ask her first to keep her on the line! “Where’s Andrew?” 

Shit! SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT! THAT was not what he was planning to ask! That was nothing like what he was planning to ask! Lead in with the little queries first, get her used to talking, relaxed about answering his enquiries, a few jokes to loosen her up, easy does it. Not straight in with the sledge hammer of all personal questions about her on again off again very much personal almost top secret confidential maybe-relationship with her ex-husband.

“You heard?” she replies – an unexpectedly direct re-direct of his question. Flat tone, carefully kept so blank of feeling that she makes it obvious how very much she’s feeling but unwilling to show him.

“What? No, no, no, nothing,” he hurries to reassure her even as his mind starts running in circles trying to guess at what he could possibly have heard about Andrew that would lead to her questioning his knowledge rather than answering possibly affirmatively about where the oh so amazing Andrew was... Please say that they broke up.

He regrets that thought immediately. The moment it solidifies in his mind. The moment he recognises it for what it is, he’s trying to claw it back rather than let it stand as testament to the heartless bastard he is currently feeling like . 

Well that explains the drinking . 

“You already kno-ow,” she whines and despite the fact that he very much doesn’t know it is abundantly obvious that she not only thinks he knows but also expects him to know and that if he’s any attempt to deny that he knows, when she already thinks that she knows that he knows, she is going to think he’s lying to her. AGAIN. As well as not believe that he doesn’t actually know. 

This confusing turn of thought is brought to you by Phil Coulson’s mind ! 

He’s almost certain that his mind worked better than this before Shield tampered with it. Maybe he could get a claim put in – is there even anyone left at Shield that he could sue? I mean, Fury’s still around and all that but last known position was living as a bum in Southern California without a penny to his name so he’s probably not worth suing anyway. Maybe he could convince Hill to come back –

He re-directs his thoughts consciously back on track. He can’t have Melinda believing he’s lying to her again. In order to combat this potential outcome he must... well... yeah, he’s gonna have to lie to her again. For fucks sake!

“I do.” He doesn’t.

 

“Just assss me,” she faux whispers after a little while.

“Asssssss you what?” he can’t help but mock her. He hasn’t enjoyed himself this much in years. Note to self: spike the punch at this year’s Christmas party. Especially Melinda’s cups. Another note to self: must throw a Christmas party for the minions. Repeat of note made to self oh so many times: MUST STOP CALLING Shield’s professional agents MY MINIONS ! 

“Assssskkkk with a ‘K’ Phil.”

“AsKKK you what?”

“If …” she leads him.

“If…?” Yeah, he’s really no idea what she wants him to ask her.

“Iiiiiiiiffff… I HAD SEX (Yeah again she really needs to learn not to shout when she pretends to be trying to whisper.) wiv Drew.”

“I don’t want to know.” Unless the answer is ‘no’, he doesn’t want to know.

 

“Phiiiiiliiiiiipe’s jealous,” she sing-songs at him down the phone and he’d smile if it weren’t a very serious accusation that she levels in that mocking voice of hers. He is not jealous of some tall, handsome, deep voiced, full head of haired, PhD, MAN WHO GO TO MARRY MELINDA! Oh no, he’s not jealous at all. 

“I’m not, I-”

“Jealous. Jealous. Jeeeelll- us!” she continues notwithstanding his refusal.

“Melinda, I’m not-” he tries to reason with her. 

“Jeeelllly- ass !” 

He should know better than to try to reason with a drunk Melinda May. The last time she was drunk they found her talking to some poor guy’s truck. She was actually refusing to let him get back in the cab to drive away, claiming that ‘no one was going anywhere until he transformed’. Oh no, not the GUY – they didn’t even know stuff like that was really possible back then. She kept whispering to the truck that she knew his secret. That she promised not to tell anyone but he HAD to transform in front of her just this once to prove he could. 

She kept calling the poor truck Optimus Prime. They’d only managed to drag her away by pretending that dear ‘Optimus’ was on a covert mission and thus had to maintain his cover as a simply transport truck. Hill had even gone so far as to climb under the truck and whisper in some kind of weirdly accurate electronic sounding voice that he was ‘honoured to meet her and would attempt to locate her at the conclusion of his most important mission.’ So, reason and drunk Melinda do not go hand in hand.

“Mel-” why he still feels the need to try is beyond him right now.

“Jellus.”

“M-“ really, he’s not going to win this one so why.

“Jell-“

“OKAY DAMNIT! I’m jealous. Happy now,” he snaps. Damn the bloody woman! She’s infuriating. Even when drunk. ESPECIALLY when drunk!

Her uncontrollable giggles chase him down the line and a smile spreads across his face without his permission. Her laughter for once set free for the world to hear rather than restrained to a single twitch of the lips. He loves to hear her laugh. Then her giggles turn into hiccups and he ends up chuckling along with her slightly just because.

“We had… LOTS… of the SEX,” she giggles. It wipes the smile from his face for certain. It’s not a laughing matter.

“Please don’t give me details, Melinda,” he tries despite knowing that she’s about to do just that. He knows this evil woman far too well. She has no shame! Oh sure, to the rest of the world she’s he quiet little woman with the perfect blank face, a mystery wrapped in an enigma topped with a cherry. To him? To him she’s a down right master of the overshare! If her cackling laughter and comments thereafter are to be believed he blushes right to the tips of his ears. She lies - it’s been decades since he’s blushed. Still, she gets entirely too much entertainment out of getting under his skin and TRYING to make him blush! That time when … 

…. she rescued Clint from a bondage situation. A very… embarrassing situation and just had to tell him every lurid detail. TWICE! He had to work with the guy!

…. she had a fivesome whilst on mission. Is it even called a fivesome? Does it just get to threesome and then go, nope, there’s too many people here and we don’t wanna waste time counting so we’re just gonna go all out and call it an orgy of fun times?

…. they intercepted Fury’s delivery from an online sex site and she couldn’t resist both opening it and telling lurid tales of how exactly Fury was probably intending to use the various items *shudder*. That such was later proved to have been ordered by Melinda in Fury’s name as a prank in no way assisted in getting rid of the nightmares from that evening… and opened up a whole other host of questions about what exactly she was intending to do with all of those… things.

… she appeared to conveniently ‘forget’ that he was still in the living room with the gang for girls night (for which he had special dispensation to attend) when she wandered out of the shower completely naked, ostensibly looking for a towel, whilst he turned bright red, stammered, half-covered his eyes with a hand and watched intently from between fingers as steady wet droplets trailed down her beautiful – yeah okay so sometimes the lack of shame works for him. 

Still, the woman has no boundaries and no restraint!

“Lots of sex.” 

He hates her. 

“Gooood sex.” 

Really. He hates her. 

“Great sex in factual..ily…ity…tee. Infactuality.” 

He’s always hated her. 

He’d like to be able to mute her – he knows that there’s a button for that on this damned fangangled gadget, doesn’t mean he’s ever tried to locate it or that he’d risk cutting her off by mistake. No matter how much he hates her.

He has the childish urge to put his hands over his ears and shout “lalalalalalaaaaa” back down the phone at her. Actually moves the phone away from his ear- and oh. Duh. Yeah, okay so that was totally stupid. He holds the phone a little ways from his ear. Far enough that he can’t quite make out the words and thus no longer feels the need to puke.

He tunes back in when her tones turns shrill. And louder.

Pulls the phone back close to his ear only to shift it away again quickly as her shout comes through loudly enough to have blown any and all cobwebs clear from his ears!

“PHIL! PHIL! PHIL! PHIL!” Yes, that’s right. She’s just randomly turned to shouting his name.

“I’m here.”

“Oh.” Well that’s not the resounding appreciation of his presence that he was hoping for, especially given her previous insistence but guess it’ll have to do.

“Phil?”

“Yes,” he confirms. Like she needs to check.

“Listnin?”

“Yes,” he confirms again.

“Careflee?” she presses.

“YES!”

“Drew’s really good at the sex,” is what she chooses to say. Gah! He could kill that woman! She is the absolute bane of his life. His second life as much – no, more! Far more this second time around. Damn her! She is the most irritating, infuriating, annoying- “But I miss you.”

Oh.

Well.

That’s okay then.

Guess he overreacted. Slightly.

“You want to know?” she asks and once again he’s at a loss as to what exactly he might want to know in such a situation as this. Honestly, she must think he has some kind of long distance mind reading ability to keep track of her weirdly random thoughts or something because nearly half of what she’s said hasn’t made any real sense to him since they started this conversation. To think he was hoping this would be an opportunity to gather some intelligence of use!

“You’re a man,” she complains. 

He blinks. That’s never been a complaint before. It certainly sounded like she was complaining. He’s never really considered that to be a problem before. She hadn’t either so far as he was aware.

“Men allllllllllways want to compare,” she grumbles and the thought hits him so hard it’s physically painful.

He’s speaking before he’s consciously thought to send the instructions to his mouth to open. It’s rapid, frantic, panicked. He does NOT want to know! He does NOT want to compare! He's not some teenager with an inferiority complex. 

He’s shouting over her but she doesn’t appear to be taking any notice from how her words seem to keep flowing back through the handset and to his ears. 

He considers hanging up. 

Seriously considers it.

But who knows if she’d phone him back. Or if she’d answer if he called.

She switches to another subject that seems to fit in with the random tangent her thoughts left upon and he takes a moment to breathe, one finger left crucially atop the disconnect button just in case it’s a trick. She trails off eventually and he allows his body to relax back down against the cushions with a sigh. 

Personal disaster: narrowly averted. 

He much prefers Shield disasters even of the worldly kind to potential personal disasters. No, he really shouldn’t think that. 

It’s true though.

 

“Drew's bigger.”

Damn the woman! And now he really does feel like a teenager with an inferiority complex! Also, Gah! Awful image. Absolutely awful image in his brain that he canNOT get rid of and he really did not need that. Not at all. Maybe if he asks Fury really really nicely he can borrow the TAHITI machine and get THAT erased. A little crazy carving and possible madness seems like a small price to pay to be rid of that image! 

And now all he can hear is Melinda's sniggering laughter, complete with hiccups as she can't quite catch her breath, and insincere apologies. He can’t help but smile, her amusement is infectious. Even if it’s at his expense. 

Damn the woman. 

 

x


	4. Cinnamon Sugar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chap is basically all devilgrrl's writing - she decided that Phil should taste like cinnamon sugar... and that the only time Melinda is likely to mention it is when she's plastered!

Chapter 4 – Cinnamon Sugar

 

"I did not need to know that." In fact, he could have lived the rest of this life just fine without ever hearing it. 

She giggled again, obviously pleased with herself. "Ohhh you need to know. You need to know lots and lots of things"

"No really I don't. Ignorance is bliss. I'd like to know where you are. That would be great to know." He tried redirecting again, knowing it was futile but not giving up.

"Knowledge is power,” she retorts immediately. So, she’s mind enough to repeat their common banter – though usually he’s the one expounding the benefits of knowledge whilst she mocks him. “ You neeeeeeed to knooooooow. Lots of things. Lots and lots and lots of things."

"Just the one thing. Tell me where you are and when I come get you then you can tell me all of these things that I don't want to hear."

"No," she refuses simply and without explanation. So very frustrating. So very Melinda.

"Melinda, do you even know where you are?" he tires, hoping that she'll respond as though it’s a challenge and give him an answer.

"Mmm. Kind of." she sighed to herself. He could well imagine her looking around and getting her bearings. He's guessing sitting she's sitting outside somewhere near a sidewalk from the sound of her heels earlier. The lack of voices or vehicle sounds in the background suggested she's alone or in sparsely populated spot. He fervently hopes no one tries to get the drop on her - drunk or not, she can take care of herself but he can’t be certain how reasonably she’ll limit her reactions with her attention so wildly scattered. "I know you’re trying to trick me Phil.”

“Who me?” he tries the innocent card knowing full well she won’t believe him.

“Mani-puuu-” she starts off and he can not force himself to wait for her to find the rest of the words and sound out each syllable as drunk as she is so he cuts in.

“Manipulating?” he offers even though he knows he’s helping her insult him.

"Yeah. Always manpipuuuulating me. Trying to get me to come home.” If only he could. He’d love her to come back. Needs her to come back more than he ever thought was possible. But… she needed time away, said so herself, he’s not going to drag her back until she wants to come home.

“I just want to know you’re okay. I won’t drag you back here, I promise. Just let me know where you are and promise me that you’re okay,” he says well aware that he’s moved from demanding into pleading but honestly now that he’s thought of it he really does need to know she’s safe.

"Gaaaah. You're so sweet. Always manipulating and so damn sweet." He heard the complaint before, but it still stung. "Your freckles probably taste like cinnamon sugar," she says following it with a happy sigh that knocks him straight out of left field. Hey what now?

"What freckles?" he asks before his mind can fully process the fact that she’s thinking what he tastes like. Oh God! She’s thinking about what he TASTES like.

"Mmmm," she hums, "the ones on your shoulders. I like your shoulders, so strong and broad." She gives that happy little sigh again and it sends him reeling. He tries clearing his throat twice to get it to work but its insufficient around the lump suddenly in his throat.

“I’d probably just taste your neck to start,” she continues mumbling almost as though she’s forgotten he’s there. “When you get all worked up and angry I just want to grab you by your tie and bite that pounding pulse… Right where it touches your collar.” Gulp. And now he’s trying NOT to cough in shock and disturb her ramblings. Oh this is going to be so good to remind her of come sobering up time. “Hmmm and your bottom lip when you pout." Wait. He pouts? He’s barely time to get through that thought before she continues happily rambling. "I'd just like to nibble it until you sigh. I love it when you sigh. It makes me think all the naughty thoughts.” All thr naughty thoughts?!? Oh yeah, they’re currently all occupying his mind in a delightful array that has his mouth dry, his chest scarcely able to breathe and a number of other effects besides.

"Phil? Phiiii-iiilllllll? You still there?"

He splutters a quick "Yeah" trying not to groan at what he just knew would be coming next.

"What do you think I should taste like?" Damn it. She went there. He knew she would. She’s a mean drunk in her way. Torturing him is much too fun a pastime for her.

"Wild honey" he manages to spit out. "You'd taste like wild honey straight from the comb." To him, she was sweet and exotic and rare as honey in a rock, dangerous to approach and worth every precaution and plan it took to get to her. 

“Honey?” she says in a way that says she's rolling the word around her mouth considering all the implications fully. “Huuuunnnyyyyyyy” He's wracking his brain quickly trying to work out if there's any part of that she could reinterpret and take offence to.

“Honey’s sweet,” she says disgusted and he just knows that her little nose will have wrinkled up in that way he finds so cute but must never, ever comment upon given the risk of accompanying death.

“You can be sweet,” he says softly, “You are sweet.” For a heart-stopping moment there is nothing but silence on the line. He really hopes she is drunk enough to forget he said that. “Melinda?” he prompts hoping she wasn’t going to keep ignoring him.

“Who told you?” she accuses sounding deadly serious.

“Melinda, it's not exactly a well-kept secret.” It isn't, their entire team knows she has a heart of gold under that hardened exterior. Well, maybe not Hunter but no one’s going to enlighten him and spoil their fun there! It's far too entertaining watching him jump every time she raises a threatening eyebrow.

“Who did you tell?” she growls accusingly down the phone line.

“No- “ he yelps slightly and forces himself to clear his throat and attempt it again in a more manly manner, “No one. “

“I don't believe you.”

“I didn't have to tell anyone, Melinda. Your actions speak for themselves. You're sweet.” He can almost feel her death glare through the handset. “You're cute when you glare too,” he adds because really when is he going to get the chance to tease her like this without his nose being in threat of getting broken... Again.

“You're funny and caring and you're led more by your heart than anyone I've ever met.” He waits for the come back, waits for her to shout denials angrily or to threaten him or to call him crazy or-“and everyone on our team knows it too!” He gets in the last shot before she can reply and ruin it.

“Honey?” she eventually says, musing over the word as though he's said nothing. “I can work with honey” she shrugs.

“Does that mean I can call you-“

“Do you want to die?” she pauses. ”Again?”

“Might be worth it... Honey.”

“Bees Phil. Buzz buzz bees Phil. Honey comes with lots and lots of bees.”

“I'll take every sting.”

 

x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah go on and leave a comment for Devilgrrl to make her day why don't ya? Ah go on. Go on.  
> Go on go on go on go on go on.  
> Go on.
> 
>  
> 
> ... Please?


	5. Truth or Dare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Dare me,” he challenges suddenly bold._
> 
> _“I dare you-“_
> 
> _“But nothing illegal,” he butts in quickly. “And nothing that might damage Shield. Or me! Nothing harmful to anyone, including me… nothing too embarrassing… nothing involving animals… or a quinjet… not any kind of jet… no flight, full stop. Nothing international. In fact, nothing outside the organisation. Definitely nothing involving the president, his security, the FBI, CIA, anti-terrorist task forces or the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. Not even NASA! In fact, keep it internal to Shield. On base only. And only people who can take a joke. Oh and nothing-”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it has been soooo long between updates - I promise to try harder...
> 
> And we're back to me writing this time around. No more cinamon sugar for you lot!
> 
> Really didn't see things going the way they did tho.......

Chapter 5 – Truth or Dare

 

“Troooth or dare?” she demands of him, only slightly slurring.

“Truth,” he answers immediately and without hesitation. Melinda’s dares are a thing to be feared. Oh sure they’re masterminded and thoroughly entertaining (when it’s not him) but they are also very VERY much to be feared. The woman’s a diabolical genius with almost zero restraint – well, at least limited restraint, when it comes to pranking, dares and trying to embarrass him!

“You aaaaalllways pick truth,” she complains. Whines would be more accurate. Whines like a small child denied candy. Not that he’d ever EVER say that out loud because as much as Melinda has restraint in almost every other circumstance… she’s still likely to punch him in the face if he’s stupid enough to say something like that aloud and within her hearing range. Ever wondered how Fury lost his eye? Yeah, that report about him losing it to infection following him getting caught in the outskirts of a grenade blast – cover story only sorry. He was there; the grenade hardly raised dust where they were standing.

“Not always,” he argues. Yes, always, he thinks. ALWAYS. He’s simply not foolish enough to call dare when Melinda’s playing. He knows better. Well… he’s learned by now at least. He’s been caught out far too many times not to learn from his mistakes in this instance at least. Also, she’s drunk. Whatever minor restraint she might have had may very well be missing at this instance in time and much as he daren’t pick dare he’s not going to back out on a dare once given! So, he picks truth. ALWAYS!

“And I still think you lie about half the truths you say you’re saying,” she continues on oblivious to his internal thoughts meanderings.

“Ask your question,” he misdirects rather than answer that with the obvious ‘sometimes’ that it deserves. If she were even a little bit closer to sober then she’d have caught it and called him on it. Thank God she’s not a little bit more sober!

“Do you need me to come home?” she asks and almost immediately he regrets not picking dare.

“I-” he starts.

“No, lie,” she interrupts before he’s even got to the second word and how the hell does the woman manage to do that? He hasn’t even decided what sentence he was going to say and she already knows he’s intending to lie. Well… not lie. Not exactly. Lie’s a strong word. Cover. Cover is a better word. He was going to cover it by giving a half truth, a reassuring type answer that wouldn’t have her racing back to base before she wanted to come home because she felt guilty simply because he needed her.

He sighs audibly before giving her a more truthful answer, “Everyone misses you.”

“Hmmm. True. And sweet. But not what I asked,” she points out and he’s wondering now if maybe she is a little more sober than he’d given her credit for being.

“We’re coping,” he says honestly. It’s the most honest he can afford to be if he’s going to avoid emotionally blackmailing her without intending to do so. If she thinks that they need her then she’s going to come rushing back irrespective of how she feels about it or what _she_ needs.

“I think… true,” she agrees slowly, unconvinced. Then she huffs down the line at him. Actually huffs. “Phil, just answer my question straight for once!” she demands.

“I…” I need you, he wants to say so badly but knows that it is the one thing he absolutely cannot say. No matter how much it might be the truth. “I… I only need you to come back when you want to come home.” 

She inhales raggedly and he’s dying to ask the obvious question of her but terrified to hear the answer.

“Do you want-”

“Dare,” she interrupts forcefully. He’s a little taken aback. He can’t really decide whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Dare. Just as he always picks truth to avoid her dares, she alllways picks dare to avoid having to tell a truth she’d rather not share.

“Okay, I dare you to…” hmmm, now what dare to give to Melinda. She’s not exactly easy to embarrass. She’s not uncomfortable with doing many things. Climb a building sure. Drunkenly sing the national anthem in public; she’ll do all the verses at the top of her lungs without complaint. Strip down to an article of clothing; well he’s not going to benefit from that one, so that’s definitely out! One thing Melinda is uncomfortable about… telling people how she feels about them at any given moment. If only she was on base, then he could get some quality entertainment sending her off to ‘talk’ to the individuals on their team. He grins just at the thought. He’s really going to have to get her to play truth or dare once she comes back home again. If. If she comes back home again. That wipes the grin off his face.

“You take too long,” Melinda moans at him and okay yes he’s been silent for a few minutes but he’s trying to think up the perfect long distance dare so it’s going to take a moment or two.

“Tell the next person…” he starts off and wracks his brain for something fun. Eventually it hits him – just the right mixture of embarrassment and honesty to make matters fun for him from a distance. “Tell the next person that you find attractive that they’re sexy,” he tells her with a smirk. Melinda will hate having to approach a stranger, will hate even more having to tell such a stranger that she finds them attractive and the words ‘sexy’ are going to burn on her tongue! 

All he can hear on the phone line is her breathing for a few minutes as she obviously considers his dare fully. He’s no doubt that she’s glaring at him a million miles away. “You’re mean,” she declares after a while has passed.

“Do you give up?”

“No,” she snaps immediately. He knew she wouldn’t give up. Melinda May has never refused a dare in her life.

“You’re sexy,” she tells him quietly. 

His fist pump up in the air will fortunately go unnoticed and unremarked upon. As will his little happy dance – only the top half, he’s still sitting down so it’s not THAT bad thank you very much. Thank god he refused to put cameras throughout the personal quarters or he’d be having to blackmail/pay off the camera techs. AGAIN. Seriously, those guys probably make more money than the rest of the agents on base. Hell, they probably make more than he does as director!

Then he hears another voice, much quieter, someone next to or near May. He can’t quite make out the words but he can pick up that it’s a woman’s voice talking. Oh god! Melinda hit on a woman! Melinda… hit on a WOMAN!

Then he hears the unmistakeable sound of dual sighs of pleasure as lips meet. He knows that his eyes are probably popping out of his head in shock and his mouth gaping like some sort of demented fish but… Melinda is kissing a woman!

Still kissing a woman!

Still.

Kissing.

“You taste like cherries,” someone whispers and argh! He definitely didn’t need that additional detail as he slumps back against the headrest to sit more comfortably. He wonders idly if he should just hang up the call now because if Melinda is going to get-

“Hey! That’s my girlfriend!” comes the shout of a very masculine voice over the phone’s speakers.

“You’re lucky,” is Melinda’s simple response. Really, he’d have gone with an apology. Maybe an explanation. But then, he doesn’t look like Melinda and she’s always been able to get away with a lot more shit than he has before ending up on the receiving side of a punch.

He can hear the sound of her heels clacking against the sidewalk again as she presumably leaves her… target and boyfriend.

“Now you do a dare,” she hisses back down the line at him when she’s presumably at a safe enough distance.

“Er, no. Truth.”

“You nearly got me in trouble, Phil. You owe me!” she all but shouts at him.

“I didn’t dare you to kiss a girl, May! I didn’t dare you to kiss anyone!” And if she's going to go around doing things like that then she should warn him first! So he doesn't have a heart attack. So he can hopefully arrange for video evidence. So he can most definitely arrange to be there in person as a witness!!!

“It was implied,” she deadpans.

“It was NOT IMPLIED! You were taking liberties to up the stakes of the game. Don’t think I’m not on to you May! I know you! And I certainly didn’t say go after someone who was there with her boyfriend,” he finishes. Last time they’d been dared into something similar he’d ended up hiding out from the angry boyfriend for the rest of the evening, much to the amusement of the others as he’d ducked under tables or joined random groups of people as cover much to their disgust. He’d been the random drunk weirdo of the evening. It had not been fun.

“You said the ‘next person.’ She was the next person,” she states adamantly and well… yes, he did and maybe he should have been more specific but really she could have simply applied common sense.

“It was implied,” he tries.

“Was not implied, Phil.”

They both fall into silence, each not particularly impressed with the other.

“Fine,” he breaks the silence. Always does. “Dare me,” he challenges suddenly bold.

“I dare you-“

“But nothing illegal,” he butts in quickly. “And nothing that might damage Shield. Or me! Nothing harmful to anyone, including me… nothing too embarrassing… nothing involving animals… or a quinjet… not any kind of jet… no flight, full stop. Nothing international. In fact, nothing outside the organisation. Definitely nothing involving the president, his security, the FBI, CIA, anti-terrorist task forces or the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. Not even NASA! In fact, keep it internal to Shield. On base only. And only people who can take a joke. Oh and nothing-”

“Oh enough already!” she shouts him into silence. “You’re the director now. We should get to have more fun not less.”

“Melinda, I have to be a little responsible now.”

“Stupid, poopy pants director responsible.” Wow, really pretty restrained for Melinda. She must be near other people. She can, and does, swear like a sailor at sea when the rum’s just gone overboard and he never learnt to swim.

“Maybe. You still want to give me a dare?” he coaches her tentatively.

“Kiss someone,” she says sulkily.

“Melinda, I’m the director. I can’t just go-”

“It’s the same dare you gave me, you coward! Now get out there and KISS someone! Before I come over there and…” she suddenly runs silent. Suspiciously silent.

“And, Melinda?” he pushes.

She snorts laughing at herself before she continues speaking. “And make you kiss someone!” she finishes and he’s laughing with her almost before she gets to the end of the sentence.

“And exactly how do you plan to do that?” he’s asking even as he gets up off the bed to go and find ‘someone’ appropriate to assist him in carrying out this dare. She didn’t specify where he had to kiss them after all. A kiss on the cheek or hand will qualify. Now he’s just got to find someone awake at this hour who will probably guess it’s a dare and won’t take offence at their director kissing them on the cheek.

 

He sticks her on comms… okay, okay, sheesh, he lets her talk him through the painstakingly slow process of how to go about linking up his ear comm unit to his phone so technically she sticks herself on comms as he goes walk about so that it’s not quite so obvious. He does pass a few agents wandering the corridors, no one he’d want to risk kissing even on the cheek, nods as they pass and hopes that none of them will comment on how they caught the director mumbling to himself in the corridor when he’s actually talking to May.

There’s none of the expected agents in the gym. He guesses now that he’s actively looking for people that he’s already really narrowed it down in his mind as to who he can risk kissing without it flying around the base, without him getting slapped and without there being any issue moving forwards. It’s pretty much narrowed down to the senior staff, his immediate team. He’s knocking Mack off the list. Hunter too. Oh and Fitz and the new guys. So, yeah, it’s basically just Sky-Daisy and Bobbi he’s searching for then really. He can work with that. Assuming one or the other is still awake. What he cannot work with is knocking on their quarters, very private quarters, with the single intention of kissing them. That would be weird. And very much not acceptable behaviour from Shield’s director.

He’s fortunate in many ways when he turns the corner into ‘their team’s kitchen’. It’s not like they’d excluded anyone from it but it had just somehow happened that they’d ended up using it and the adjacent rec room as theirs and other agents just seemed to find other kitchens.

“Agent Morse,” he greets ecstatic at finding her in a relatively normal place for him to broach the subject. Then the fridge door closes and “Agent Hunter,” he greets slightly less than thrilled that he’s now got to do this in front of a witness. A witness with Hunter’s attitude and lack of respect for authority no less.

“Please tell me you just walked in on them having sex? Please! Please, Phil!” 

He shushes her quickly and smiles across at the two of them as though nothing is wrong. Melinda’s cackling down the line directly into his ear doesn’t help. He frowns as he tries to block the sound out by pressurising his ears internally to deaden the noise.

“Sir, are you alright?” Morse asks. Ah, he realises, the frown gave it away. Morse always notices things, even the minute things, even the things he’d rather that she didn’t.

“Oh myyy, Phil. Hunter is so gonna try and punch you in the face when you kiss Bobbi!” Melinda enlightens him delightfully between her cackling laughter.

“Shh,” he hisses through gritted teeth at her.

“Sir…” Morse again. “Are you on comms with someone?” she asks far too inquisitively and closes in on his position in far too few of her long legged strides. She can probably hear Melinda from how close she is and how loud the laughter is ringing in his ears.

“Er… ” he hedges. “Yeah. It’s May.” Well it’s not like she doesn’t already know and isn’t probably going to figure out that it’s May anyway. Morse is a damn good agent. An annoyingly damn good agent. He’s unlikely to get something like this past her.

“May? Say ‘hi’ to her for me,” Morse says then backs off again with a smile and flaunts back to… what on earth is that concoction she’s making? Is that even edible?

“Bobbi says ‘hi’” he repeats to Melinda on auto even though she has presumably heard.

“Tell her ‘hi’ too,” Melinda bubbles. Gah it’s been years since he’s heard her quite so happy. His embarrassment, and possible injury, seems like a small price to pay to hear her this happy. “Oh and tell her that I don’t really hate Hunter. He’s good for her. And she loves him even if she pretends she doesn’t. And they’re sleeping together anyway. And we all know it. But they need to stay out of my gym. If I catch them in there again I’ll castrate him! She wouldn’t like him quite so much then! Well… she might. They’d probably argue less.” 

Bobbi goes to speak, but he’s concentrating/enjoying far too much Melinda’s rambling so holds up the Finger of DoomTM and she falls into silence with only an enquiring eyebrow.

“You got rid of the frat regs right Phil?” Melinda continues but doesn’t wait for him to answer, “So it doesn’t matter if everyone sleeps together.” She seems to realise what she’s just said as she starts snortling again. “Not… not EVERYONE. That’d be a Shield orgy!” Giggling. “I love orgies.” Oh really now? “But I don’t wanna sleep with Hunter.” Damn right! “Bobbi would get jealous.” That can’t be the only reason surely?! “She should just marry him! Tell her, Phil!” she demands suddenly insistent. “Tell her now.”

“Er… oh right.” He looks to Bobbi and Hunter who are watching him expectantly. Where to start with all of that? “Erm… May says ‘hi’.”

“That all?” Bobbi’s eyebrows smirk at him.

“Er… she says you should marry Hunter again,” he confesses the most easily translated part of Melinda’s rambling.

Bobbi smiles, looks down and blushes. Hey, who knew Morse could still blush.

“Anyway… Umm. I need your help with a delicate matter," he begins cautiously. That neither immediately promises assistance tells of their experience as spies – they’ll wait to find out what before promising ‘anything.’

"I need to kiss you," he says simply. No point dragging it out after all. 

Bobbi arches one beautiful brow, Hunter flusters "What?" to be fair to Hunter, he had only been half paying attention, mostly Hunter just wanted food and sleep.

He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Is that… is that going to be okay?” he asks mainly Bobbi.

She nods and smiles, eyeing him knowingly as she replies that it’s no big deal. Hunter’s second “what” is even more astonished than the first. And a little on the aggressive side if he’s honest.

“Hey, he needs to kiss one of us,” Bobbi starts convincing Hunter, “so if you’re saying no… well then…” she trails off leadingly. He’s watching a master of manipulation at work here so just remains silent, certain as Bobbi is that Hunter will end up agreeing with her.

Hunter’s eyes grow very, VERY wide as he considers all of the options, not that there’s all that many. Punching him in the face is probably at the top of the short list. 

“No!” Hunter declares. “I am not just standing here and letting him kiss you without a fight!”

Oh shit! He has a moment to think before Hunter is charging around the table and across the kitchen at him. He tries to back track, to explain, to apologise, to reassure that it wasn’t what he meant but all his words are a hurried garbled mess, not assisted by Melinda cackling down the line, and are seemingly ignored by the enraged Brit.

Hunter grabs the collar of his shirt in both fists and rams him against the wall forcibly and DAMN! But that hurts. Then plants one on him. 

 

Smack full on the lips.

 

Oh. 

And oh.

Well… he really didn’t think that it would be Hunter’s lips meeting his own.

And damn but the man can kiss! 

He finds his lips moving under the persuasive Brit’s tongue, conceding and kissing him back properly in what is turning into a dangerously arousing kiss. 

Fortunately, or not, Hunter breaks the kiss after a few moments. They’re both breathing pretty hard but he can’t stop the words from escaping between breaths, “It’s been a while since I’ve been kissed like that!”

Hunter shrugs pretending not to be embarrassed about it all but quite clearly off kilter. Eventually he finds a cocky response to fit the situation – seems to be his superpower don’t you know. “Well… I wasn't gonna do it badly! I've a reputation to maintain.” 

No one chooses to point out that there's only Bobbi in the room and she already knows how talented he is in that department. 

It’s only then that he realises that he’s still got Melinda on the line and that she has now resorted to shouting down the line at him. “Did he do it? Someone talk to me! Did Hunter do it? Did he hit Phil?” He can’t even find it in himself to be particularly annoyed at her for the assumption.

“Don’t worry Phil,” Melinda reassures his assumed unconscious form, “if he was stupid enough to hit you, I’ll get your revenge. I love getting revenge.” Oh how he knows she does!

Bobbi pulls the comm unit from his ear without asking. “May? Bobbi.”

There’s a few seconds of silence where Melinda is presumably asking the same questions of Morse.

“Er no,” is Morse’s answer. “He didn't. He erm... Completed your dare.” Well that does kind of explain what happened. Only… well he could really have done without her knowing. He needs to remember to get to the video footage before Melinda gets back on base…

“He kissed him?!?” that’s loud enough for all of them to hear as he takes the comm unit back from Morse’s palm.

Damn it. He can almost feel his ears turning red as he plops the comm back into his ear and turns to leave the room without another word.

She always wins when he gets dare!

“Really, Phil?” Melinda continues.

“You KISSED Hunter?” she keeps asking as though it is completely beyond her comprehension. 

 

“I think I need another drink.”

 

 

x


	6. I am an elephant!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another fun chap for some light (foolish?) entertainment :D

I am an Elephant

“I want my apology.”

“Melinda, we’ve been through this-”

“AAAAAAT LENGTH! You said at leee-eng-th,” she whines and he’s pretty sure that the word length does not normally contain three syllables and take seven seconds to say out loud.

“If I apologise now, you won’t remember it and I’ll have to apologise tomorrow as well.” Bloody well done brain – THAT was some impressive thinking work right there!

“Good. You owe me two apolo…app…”

“Apologies?”

“Shut up.”

He says nothing with a smile.

“Phil?”

He almost raises a hand across his mouth to keep his chuckles at her petulant whining from escaping.

“Phiiiiiiiiiiiilll?”

…

“Phiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllip!”

…

“Talk to meeeeeeeeeeee!”

“I thought you wanted me to shut up?” he asks smugly.

“I hate you,” is her only answer and he grins, glad that he’s out of range of the glare she’s most likely sporting. “Want my app… ap-”

“Apology. At length. I know. But if I say it all now and then you don’t remember, then I say it all again tomorrow you’ll still only remember one of them and you wanted two to remember, remember?” he says, fairly confident that he’s got her on both drunken logic and confusion from the sheer number of ‘remembers’ that she probably won’t remember.

“I’m an elephant!” she declares. 

He blinks. 

He rethinks every word in that admittedly short sentence.

He tries to think of things that sound a little like ‘elephant’ just in case he’s misheard.

“Phil? Don’t not talk to me again. Dooooonnnn’t,” she whines quite un-elephant-like.

“Melinda, what did you just say?” he clarifies.

“Don’t not taaaaalk to me again. It makes me sad when you don’t… when you don’t not talk. No wait. That doesn’t sound very right.”

“Before that, Melinda,” he clarifies before she can ramble on any longer trying to work out the double negatives.

“Well I said Phiiiiilll.”

“About an elephant?” he asks tentatively, hoping that maybe he just misheard.

“I am an elephant,” she declares adamantly and without hesitation.

“Oh,” he confirms non-plussed, “Yeah, that’s what I thought you said.”

…

“Melinda?” yeah, he knows, he should just leave well enough alone but … well he just can’t alright. “You’re not an elephant.”

“I am,” she declares almost sounding affronted that he’s dared to contradict her on so blatant a fact.   
He checks quickly at the phone’s screen, wondering if there is a readily accessible button to record the contents of the call… looks at the little pictures… errr… that’d be a ‘no’ then. He daren’t just push any old button and risk losing her call. Okay then. Time to enjoy teaching ‘Melinda is not an elephant 101.’ 

He grins as he starts, “Melinda… what colour are elephants?”

“Phil, you’ve seen elephants.”

“Humour me?” he asks, very very certain that in actual fact he’s the one humouring her.

“Okkaaaay. They’re greyish, bluish, wrinkley mud-coloured,” she answers and he’s smiling at the fact that she can’t just restrict herself to saying ‘grey’ but in actual fact her answer does seem exactly on point. Elephants are kind of greyish bluish wrinkley mud-coloured.

“And are you greyish bluish wrinkley mud-coloured?” he smirks even as he asks.

“Nooooooooo.”

“So you’re not the colour of an elephant?” he presses.

“Obveee… obvs… no,” she pouts.

“Melinda… how big are elephants?”

“Big,” is her succinct answer.

“And how big are you?”

The growl he hears erupt from her throat should concern him more than it does… he puts it down to his being safely many miles away from her and the fact that she’s unlikely to remember the conversation at all come morning… so he’s probably safe from retribution. Probably.

“Melinda, I’m not making fun of your size,” he hurries to confirm, “but wouldn’t you say you’re a little bit smaller than an elephant?”

“‘M not small,” she mumbles quite clearly sulking.

“No, no you’re not,” he quickly lies. “You’re normal sized for… er…” Shit! Shit! Shit! Brain think damn it! Normal sized for… an elf? For a small person? For a tiny yet deadly Asian woman? Argh! 

“For…?” she questions leadingly. Leading him very definitely into a trap dangerous to his health, he’s almost certain of it!

“For you!” Yes! Well done brain! “You are very definitely normal sized for you!” he confirms, hoping it’s enough to pass drunken muster.

“Thanks Phil,” she responds happily – it’s almost as though she has received a genuine compliment from him.

“In fact if anything, I think you’re even a bit taller than normal for… er you,” he says, shaking his own head in amazement at his stupidity.

“I do like you, Phil,” she says and although he knew that it is still nice to hear her actually say it, even if she’s drunk… and he’s just pretty much told her she’s taller than herself. The mind boggles.

“But you’re sm-” he interrupts that thought quickly, “What I mean is an elephant is bigger than normal you size isn’t it?”

“Of course,” she readily agrees without any trace of sarcasm.

“And an elephant has four legs?”

“Yes,” she confirms with a little puzzlement finally starting to enter her tone at the line of his questioning.

“And you have two legs?”

“Two arms as well. Oh no! Phil! I just said the arm thing and I’m so sorry and I didn’t mean to and I know we’re not supposed to talk about it ‘cos you’ve only got one arm now and it’ll never grow back and you might get a laser arm instead but you’ll still be sad and I’m so sorry,” she gushes repeatedly despite the fact that he’s not actually upset about her mentioning his arm or lack thereof at all.

Actually, it’s kind of refreshing for someone to talk about it. It seems the team have been completely ignoring the matter. It’s been so long now that honestly it’s got to the stage where he doesn’t feel he can mention it without it becoming even more awkward between them.

“It’s okay, Melinda,” he tries to talk over her, to reassure her and well frankly to stop the continuing rambling of apologies and things he won’t be able to do as easily one armed. She’s just gotten to mentioning his ties, something of a sore spot to be honest, when he can’t take it any longer and snaps at her to stop. That brings her ramble to an immediate halt but he feels like a heel for shouting. Her little voiced ‘m sorry’ makes him feel even worse. He shakes his head as though that might shake away the entire conversation and re-starts where he left off, hoping to drag her back to more humorous topics… like elephants and how she is not one!

“Elephants have trunks too right Melinda?”

“Yes, but not like mine,” she says and his mind is immediately going off to strange places imagining Melinda with a trunk.

“You have a trunk?” his mouth asks without conscious thought.

“Yep,” she says popping the ‘p’ of it in a way that he just knows means she’s lining him up to be the butt of a joke.

He thinks hard. Runs his mind. Trunk. Trunk. Ah ha!

“In your car?” he questions, certain now that he’s avoided her poorly concealed trap.

“Noooo,” she sing songs amused. Oh. Erm. Brain? Any ideas you’d care to share? “Give up?”

“Not yet.”

“Now?”

“No, give me a minute.”

“How ‘bout now?”

“No.”

“Now?”

“No.”

“Now now now now now now now now now now now now-”

“MELinda!”

“It’s a luggage trunk!” she crows delighted but it just annoys him that she didn’t give him chance to get it on his own. He would have. Eventually. Maybe.

“I wasn’t even done guessing!” he complains at her.

“Youuuu loose!” she continues and can he hear… yes, yes, he can. From the sounds of it she is actually doing a little happy dance on her side of the phone. Oh what he wouldn’t give to be there right now to see it… and to video it for blackmail purposes at a later date. The stumble and the ‘ouch’ make him smile but he doesn’t question her lack of grace a second time. 

“Back to elephants,” he redirects her.

“I like elephants,” she replies dreamily. “I want an elephant, Phil. Will you get me an elephant?”

“Melinda, you can’t just buy an elephant,” he tries to explain without upsetting her.

“I want one.”

“I want never gets,” he says. Then he cringes. He actually said that, oh dear oh dear. He’s becoming more like his mother every day.

“You sounded like my mother just then,” she says, practically echoing his thoughts.

“I’ll buy you an elephant,” he redirects before they can go any further down that conversation topic. An elephant is a small price to pay in comparison!

x

"My hand hurts." He'd like to say 'snap' to her but he knows that such would probably just spiral her down into repeated rambling apologies again about his lost limb and well to be quite honest he can do without reminding himself. Again.

A questioning hum escapes him before he can control that non-verbal enquiry.

"You not gonna ask me whyyyyyyyyy, Phillllllip?" she tempts him and, yeah, he knows he's not going to be able to resist even before she adds, "maybe it's a seeeeecret."

"Oh why does your hand hurt, Melinda?" he asks attempting to smother the mockery in his tone with some sort of at least minimal concern. He should probably be at least minimally concerned. He still can't quite find it within him to be the bigger man about a 'hurt hand' that is probably only bruised when he's so recently found his lacking in presence.

"The dumbass' head was too hard," she complains at him like it's his fault that some idiot's head was hard when she... wait a minute -

"Melinda, who did you hit?!" Yes, now he is most definitely concerned!

She says nothing and he just knows it is shame that's holding her tongue.

He tries again, less accusational and more coaching her to try to obtain a response. If she's about to get arrested for assault he could really do with knowing so that he can try to get there to sort it all out before she's booked. "Melinda," he says slowly, "do you remember that lecture we had from Fury?" Repeatedly, he adds silently resigned.

"Stupid Fury. Always so fury..." He waits her out but she doesn't show any intention of adding the 'ous' and honestly he's so not going to tempt her in to going any further down that line of thought - he's still not entirely sure how Fury gets to know things but oh he'll find out if they're bad mouthing him. He will.

"The lecture about the real world and the spy world?" he presses her to recall at least some of the pertinent details of those many MANY lectures he was forced to stand through. All of which were undeserved entirely on his part. All of which were very definitely her fault. Sometimes Natasha's fault too.

"Hmm," she says noncommittally. "There were lots of lectures."

"There were," he agrees. There certainly were! "but this one in particular we seem to keep coming back to with you and with Natasha." Over and over again. Seriously, it was like they didn't even try not to slap the people that annoyed them sometimes.

"I love, Tasha."

"Remember how you're not allowed to hit civilians in the real world?" he presses.

"Hmm," she murmurs non-commitantly. It's more than obvious that she does remember and is in fact now sulking.

"Or kick them?" he pushes on. He always pushes. It's a requirement when dealing with cocky spies for a day job. You don't push and you don't get anywhere with them. You push and it's usually a toss up whether you get hit or get some information. So, he pushes. Carefully. But it's not like she can hit him for annoying her this time - she's a fair few miles away!

"Yeah," she grumps and he grins.

"Or tie them up and pretend to interrogate them?" Okay so that only happened the once to civilians... and they did kind of deserve it.

"Maybe."

"Melinda-"

"He grabbed my ass!" she interrupts suddenly peeved.

"Okay and whilst that is indeed a good reason..." The dumbass should be glad he hadn't been there. He'd have... nah, he'd probably have held her bag whilst she knocked him out. "It is only a good enough reason to hit another trained agent. Like Hunter," he offers.

"Or kgb? Mi5? What about the-"

"Yes, Melinda. Any trained combatant you can hit for grabbing your ass," he confirms then quickly revises that, "Or if they attack you. Or if they're enemies. Or pissing you off in Hunter's case." Hey, it's not his fault the guy just seems to have a talent for inciting violence in people! "In fact, you can move or less hit anyone who is trained. But not a civilian," he finishes sternly, hoping that at least he can get this through her thick drunken skull any further incidents tonight might just be able to be avoided.

"I'm sorry I hit dumbass," she says feeling sorry for herself and he's tempted to take it further but worried that she might burst in to tears again so he quickly diverts.

"Did he get up after you hit him?"

"Yeah," she snivels and oh God please don't let her cry again. He can't cope if she cries. "His friends helped."

Oh no. "Melind-"

"They all got up too," she hurries to add. Implying that she knocked them down too - it doesn't help.

"Mel-"

"I'm sorry."

He breathes deeply in and out. "At least no one was seriously hurt," he eventually settles upon.

"Phil?"

"Yes, Melinda."

"Policemen aren't civilians right?"

 

x


	7. The Perils of Drinking Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a chill pill Phil!

Chapter 7 – The Perils of Drinking Alone

 

“Melinda, out of interest, how much HAVE you had to drink?” he asks unable to help the amusement that laces his tone. It takes one hell of a lot to get Melinda drunk. A HELL of a lot. He’s observed the rare phenomenon of a drunk Melinda May a number of times but only ever after abstaining himself. 

“I think… I think….” she mumbled and then tailed off. For quite a while. He hopes she hasn’t fallen asleep… wherever she is now.

“Melinda?”

“Hmmmm?” Not asleep then. That’s good.

“You were saying ‘you think’ and then you went all quiet.”

“I think…” Oh god just have patience Phil. Wait her out. At some point she will work her way around to the actual point she was intending to make. 

“I… thiiiiink…” Patience Phil. Patience will be rewarded.

“I thiiiink… someone… spiked my drink.” And she sounds so incredibly insulted by that fact that he’d chuckle at her adorable attitude if it wasn’t concerning him quite so much that she might actually have been spiked.

“Someone spiked your drink?”

“Yeah… I mean, I think so… he didn’t say...”

“HE didn’t SAY! Melinda what the hell?!”

“He said ‘fuck’ a lot. “And ‘bitch’ ... I am not a bitch Phil!”

“No, you’re not. You’re definitely not but I need you to concentrate just now Melinda. Who is this ‘he’ and where are you?” 

“And ‘ow’... he said ‘ow’ lots,” he can almost hear the smirk in her voice as she says that and finds himself smiling along slightly. Yeah, random guy should know better than to try to spike Melinda’s drink. But, more importantly, he needs to find her. Now.

 

“Okay... so you hit him at some point then. Who was he?” then his stomach flip flops and everything suddenly becomes that much more urgent as it hits him, “Was he Hydra? Was he associated with Ward?” He quickly rolls to grab the pad from the bedside table, pulls up the link to the system, swiping a little too frantically for his touches to register properly and getting increasingly more frustrated at having to press things twice! “Melinda, this is important! Did he have back up? How many? WHERE are you?”

“One Phil. Not Hydra... not stupid Aaaaagent Grant Ward scumbucket to the rescue... James... something... Smidt... Smith... Smithsonian... I do like the Smithsonian Phil. We should go-”

“Melinda!” he interrupts before she can get anymore distracted. “What did ... James... put in your drink?” He codes in confirmation of his orders to prep a quinjet for immediate departure and for the loading of Lola – he can’t exactly fly through city streets, presuming she is drinking in a built up area.

“Who’s James?”

He sighs, head dropping down to his chest as he tries to find the last moments of patience. 

“Melinda... what... spiked... your drink?” he asks through slightly gritted teeth, praying that he can at least get this limited information out of her so that medical can have the appropriate counters on hand.

“Pills Phil... Hey, that rhymes! Pills phil. Phil pill. Take a Phil pill, Phil. No, a chill Phil, Phil... A... Take a-”

“Melinda! Do you know what kind of pill?”

“A chill Phil pill,” she answers adamantly and he rubs at his forehead. Again.

“Was it a big pill or a small pill? What colour was the pill?”

“Take the red pill-”

“Red, good. Now we’re-”

“We always take the red pill, Phil. Sometimes I wanna take the blue pill. Wake up in Neverland. Have the happy dream...” what the actual hell is she on about now? “even if I am stuck in the matrix.” Matrix? Damn the woman!

“The pill the man put in your drink wasn’t red was it, Melinda?”

“Noooo.”

“What colour was it?”

“Don’ know.” Makes sense, not like she’d have actually seen him spike her drink.

“Did the man have any other pills, Melinda? In his pocket maybe?”

“Don’ know,” she answers and now it seems she’s turning sulky again. He sighs. Yeah, again. He’d forgotten how much fucking work a drunk Melinda May was to deal with.

“Okay, well tell me where you are and I’ll come get you,” he tries. Medical can probably work out what she’s been hit with and sort an appropriate counter agent. It’s just a shame he’ll then have to deal with her snarling and snapping at him for a week for exposing her to the medics. Still he’d rather have her snarling than stuck in the middle of nowhere drugged.

“No,” she sullenly refuses. Gah! The sheer nerve of this woman! If he could reach down through the phone line and strangle her then he’d probably try it notwithstanding her indisputable ability to kick his ass. Has she no sense of self-preservation at all? She could be in trouble and instead of telling him straight off that she’d been attacked and needed back up she’s been talking of elephants and ghost tampons! Damn it! He needs on site. He needs to see her, to hold her- _shake_ her for sheer stupidity and just...

“MELINDA!” he can’t help that his voice cracks like a whip down the line – he can’t believe her stupidity! 

“Don shout at me Phil!”

“Tell me where you are NOW!” He needs to get to her.

And was that… was that a sniffle? Oh no. “Melinda, are you crying?” he asks far more gently. Melinda May does not cry. 

The sniff this time is obvious. The choked “No” that is half swamped by a sob even more so.

“Melinda,” he half growls, half sighs and his hand comes up to rub at the frowning headache he can feel trying to re-start above his eyes. This woman always gives him a headache. “Melinda…”

“You’re mean,” she complains pathetically. Gah! It’s like talking to a child. A particularly drunk and pathetically whimpering child. 

“Melinda, please tell me where you are,” he tries finding some semblance of a last dreg of patience from somewhere. “Please.”

“No.”

He looks briefly heavenwards and takes a second just to appreciate the sheer amount of sulkiness that she managed to fit into that sole short word. Then prays for inspiration.

There’s a bleep bleep. Followed by an “uh oh.” Then suspicious silence.

“Melinda?”

“My battery’s dying.”

 

x


	8. Introducing... The Fitz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to Devilgrrl for making this readable! :D

Chapter 8 – Introducing... The Fitz

 

"Super Scientist"

"Great... geek"

"Neff- neff- neffy-rius nerd"

He is trying really hard not to be listening to all of the foolish names she's throwing about for him to call Fitz in the field - because _of course_ Fitz needs a code name assigning right the hell now despite the fact that he is rarely in the field and has never needed to go undercover to such an extent on any mission that a code name would be at all useful. Notwithstanding all of that... it's just easier to let her prattle on about code names in his ear whilst he tries to explain to Fitz what exactly is going on and how he needs help tracing said call before she wears out the remaining battery life on her phone... or his ears - his ears may well fail first.

"Or just add The. Everything is better with The."

"What?" he can't help that the word escapes him when she's not only failing to make sense in a general sense but actually failing to make ANY sense specifically.

"The Whitehouse - without The then it's just a white house. There's loads of those. But because it's got the The -"

"Melinda, the president - "

"Another The, see?" Should it worry him slightly that his brain thinks she's staring to make sense?

"We can't call him The Fitz." 

"Sir?" said Fitz questions and yeah maybe he should have covered his side of the conversation a little better but well that is what a complete lack of sleep and having to deal with a drugged up Melinda May will do to a man!

"Just a minute, Fitz."

"Call him The Fitz, Phil," she slurs over the phone line at him and oh there is so no way he is doing that. It's not even like it's a code name if they're still calling him Fitz - anyone overhearing comms is going to know it's him! Is he going to correct Melinda on this? OH no. Oh so definitely no. He knows better than to pick an argument with a drugged Melinda May!

"Melinda, I'm trying to talk to T-Fitz right now so that he can find you," he tries _very patiently_ to explain for possibly the *tenth time* why she should be quiet to give him a moment's peace to explain the situation to Fitz who is currently looking at him like he's gone out of his mind. "Her phone's dying," he tells Fitz simply talking over Melinda's continuing ramblings in his ear.

“The Fitz is so clever. So clever. Such a clever boy.” These and other compliments for their little Scottish scientist are a continuing drivel down the phone line and into his ear from one drunk Melinda May. Yeah, he agrees with her but he could really do without the constant whining barrage when he’s trying to explain the situation to said genius.

"I need you to find her so that I can go pick her up," he tells Fitz, hopeful that said 'clever boy' can indeed work some sort of magic trace back through the technology in her phone to locate her. 

“Let me talk to The Fitz.” She’s also been petulantly demanding that since she knew he was looking for the guy.

“That’s not a good idea,” he tells her gently, trying his hardest not to let it sound like a blank refusal that would send this spiralling into an argument. “Can you trace the call?” he asks Fitz straight after. You can see the difficulties here for his poor brain to try to keep up with both conversations – it is very late…make that very early in the morning! 

“I wanna talk to The Fitz.”

“In a minute. Maybe find her location or something?

 

"Let me talk to The Fitz NOW damn it! Poor The Fitz. Be good to him Phil, he misses The Simmons so much."

"Or just direct her to a pay phone?” he tries.

“Fitz, Fitz, Fitz, Fitz. Fitz is a funny word you know? Fitz FitzFitzFitzFeeeeetz.” Argh! Damnably annoying woman!

“Fine. But don’t blame me when you remember this tomorrow and you’ve said something embarrassing!” He hands the phone out in front of him to Fitz’ bemused looking face. “She wants to talk to you,” he explains probably unnecessarily.

“Hi May,” the kid says quieter, softer than he’s ever heard the lad speak to anyone before. He can’t help thinking that it’s sweet.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m doing okay.” And why hadn’t he asked Fitz that first? Had he even asked the lad in the last week how he was doing? Even drunk, Melinda is looking after their agents better than he is. He needs to step up more. He will. Vow made.

“Oh it’s going okay. No real big leads yet but I’m hopeful.” Fitz’ eyes flick to him in a manner that makes it entirely too obvious that what he’s about to say is either about him or something that he wants to hide from him. Either way, he is staying right here and hearing whatever he can.

“Yeah.” Well, that’s hardly enlightening.

“Look, Director Coulson is right here so I…” Cheater. No fair reminding May not to lead him into disclosing anything Fitz doesn’t want him to hear.

“Yes… yes… okay…” So non-enlightening!

“I’ll see you then…” Fitz ends with a smile. A smile he hasn’t seen on the lad’s face since… well since well before Melinda left and Simmons was swallowed whole by the alien obelisk. It’s good to see him smile again. So good that he finds himself smiling in echo of it even as his mind works on the last phrase in the background. 

The phone is handed back to him as Fitz turns to the computer, loading up programmes unknown and typing away frantically. ‘See you then’ - it’s a common form of signing off a call but the emphasis was all wrong. It wasn’t said casually enough. See you _then_. Specifically ‘then.’As though he wanted to use a different word.The flick of the eyes up to him just before he said it.

“Melinda, when are you seeing Fitz?” he opens with, hoping the surprise of his question will be enough against her drunken brain to get him the answer he seeks. The sudden tensing of Fitz’ shoulders in front of him make it adamantly clear that they are indeed meeting.

“It’s a seeeecret Phil,” she starts and then the line goes dead as her phone dies. Damn it!

 

“Fitz I need you to get her back on the line.”

“I’m an engineer, Sir, I can’t just magic up the impossible.” Note to self- need to stop letting Fitz watch reruns of Star Trek. “If she’s no battery on her end then the call will simply not be received. There’s nothing I can do from here.” 

“Can we set up a search, ping her location, something?” Anything? His mind adds.

“That’s not…” (possible) his mind adds as Fitz raises a hand and wanders off apparently deep in thought. “…A bad idea,” he hears from the corridor and spins about quickly in surprise, scooping up the phone like it’s his last link to Melinda then running, with far too much haste for a Director of Shield to be found running with, to catch up to his wandering scientist. 

“We should be able to ping a signal off the sim if the phone has even a modicum of reserve power and if we can bounce it back off a number of…” the kid, not a kid he reminds himself, the _Agent_ rambles on but all he’s really focused upon is the way that Fitz seems to finally have come alive again, his eyes alight with the challenge of a problem to solve for probably the first time since Simmons… disappeared. Time’s been hard on the kid. Harder than most. He wishes Melinda were here to … well he was going to say to ‘talk to him’ but actually she’d probably just sit silently next to him for a while, oozing support without actually saying or doing a thing, and the lad would feel better. He smiles in recollection of far too many times where he’s been on the receiving end of that stoic support. Yeah, she has that amazing ability in abundance.

 

x

 

“I’ve narrowed it down to the mid-northwest… but I can’t get it any closer than that.” Fitz sounds so completely defeated by this partial success that he can’t help but wish he’d never brought the phone to him in the first place. He clamps a hand down on the guy’s shoulder in solidarity.

“That’s much better than I could have done without your help, Fitz.”

“It’s nowhere close to what we need to track the call down though. That area covers thousands of square miles of dense population. She could be anywhere in it.”

A sudden call vibrating the phone in his hand takes him so unexpectedly that he drops the phone in surprise with an (entirely manly, I assure you) yelp as it falls. He scoops it up from the floor quickly, swiping to answer with only a casual glance at the caller ID. “Hill, let me go to my office and throw you up on the screen,” he says and with a last squeeze to Fitz’ shoulder heads to leave as intended.

“No need. I’m actually just putting a call through to you. Though I don’t recall agreeing to take the post of your secretary at any time in the past twelve years I’ve known either of you. I had actually got the vague notion from somewhere that I used to be your boss,” Maria grumbles though he knows that if she didn’t want to put a call through to him she is more than capable of simply hanging up on the caller concerned. That makes it more than likely that the call she’s received in the dead of night is someone special. He hopes someone very special indeed. “So, the next time Melinda drunk dials Romanoff at a time no decent person should be awake - do NOT say it Phil! – then not only am I not going to pick up, not only-“

“And why are you answering Natasha’s calls, Maria?” he interrupts blandly before she can really get into the rhythm of her tirade.

“She left her phone here,” Maria deadpans, The Tone TM daring him to pushing it further. He can almost feel through the phone how her lips have tightened, her expression closing down, eyes hard as she glares at him. 

“Hi Phil,” come the dulcet tones of a sleepy sounding Natasha Romanoff and he grins at the sounds of the scuffle that follows. “Good to hear you’re still alive,” comes between the dull thudding of soft blows, probably caused by pillows he imagines.

“Bye Phil,” is shrieked seconds before the call switches to an entirely more deafening line.  
He rolls his eyes at their antics, intending to share the joke at their never-has-been-a-secret-not-ever-no-matter-how-much-they-might-pretend-to-be-oh-so-secret-super-spies-and-*cough*-discreet relationship, but realises that Fitz is the only other person in the room. Poor young Fitz who is looking more than a little stunned. Actually he looks properly glazed over even as he waves a hand in front of the lad’s face. Okay so maybe it might have been a little more secret from some of the lower level agents. Hmm. Who knew?

“Maaaarriiiiiaaaa… … Maaaaaarrrrriiiiaaaa… … Maria, maria, maria,maria, Maaaaaahhhhhhrreeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaahhhh…”

“Melinda?”

“Oh, you’ve put me though. Good. Hi Phil!”

“Hello, Melinda,” he smirks, pushing at Fitz’ arm until he focuses once more on the important and then waving rapidly at the phone now held to his ear in a way that he hopes makes some sense to the guy that he means for him to try to trace the call. He’s not entirely sure that what he did makes any sense as a Charades gesture but then how does one mime ‘trace the call’? Actually, he thinks what he did mime was probably closer to the loop round the ear commonly used to denote ‘crazy’ but that seems pretty accurate too.

“My phone’s dead. Dead.Dead.Dead.Dead as a doorknob. That’s a funny saying. Have you ever felt like a doorknob Phil? You were dead after all. All dead.Not mostly dead. Very, truly, completely dead.Did death make you feel like a doorknob? Ohh I shouldn’t ask that. Forget I asked that. We do not talk about being dead. That’s the first rule of being dead right? Like Fight Club. What’s the first rule of being dead? You do not talk to Phil about being dead,” she rambles in a manner that makes it ever so clear that not only is it her but also that she is still just as drunk. He spends a moment wondering what exactly she said when she called Hill before being put through to him but decides that he probably doesn’t really want to know.

“I’m alive again now Melinda. Do you want to tell me where you are so I can come pick you up?”

“Yes,” she says. Yes! “You’re alive again and I’m so happy. Did I tell you how happy I was? I love Fury for making you alive again Phil. I missed you. I bet Fury is alive again too cos he was dead too. Right? We’ll be a Shield of alive again agents. Oh but not me. I don’t wanna be a zombie Phil. Phil, promise me! Promise me you won’t turn me into a zombie!?! I don’t want to amble round all gross and disgusting and eat people and things…” Damn it.

“I won’t let you be a zombie Melinda. Now, tell me where you are so that I can come and get you.”

“You’re not a zombie?”

“I am definitely not a zombie,” he assures her, levelling a glare at the back of a chuckling scientist who seems far too amused even if he can only hear one side of the conversation. Thank god he can’t hear the other side as well, he’d never live it down if Melinda found out! 

“Promise?”

“I promise that I am not a zombie. I was dead. But I am one hundred percent alive again and not the walking dead,” he says even as he thinks to himself that ‘one hundred percent’ may be over-selling it slightly. 

“You know, sir, Daisy might be able to get an accurate trace on the phone she’s calling from,” Fitz interrupts quietly with a small smile he’s not even attempting to hide at the promises he’s not a zombie.

“You’re alive but my phone is dead. Dead as a door nail…” Melinda sing-songs along in his ear.

“Thanks Fitz. Good work, by the way,” he adds with a squeeze to the young man’s shoulder.

“Good work, Fitz,” Melinda parrots in a deep stuffy tone, mocking him. “Carry on soldier. Stiff upper lip and all that jazz. Do zombies like jazz, Phil?”

“Wait a minute - if your phone’s dead, how are you calling me?”

The giggling on the other end of the line does not fill him with confidence. Melinda May does not giggle like an insane woman. 

Well... not often.

“Promise not to tell?”

“I promise.”

“I stole it,” she faux whispers in a voice very likely far too loud for imparting secrets as he tries to shush her on his end in the hopes that no one overhears and takes stock of where their phone currently rests. “From a policeman.”

“What?!? Melinda!” 

“It’soooohhhh-kaaaay Phil,” she reassures him in an overly condescending tone that makes him want to reach through the screen and wring her neck. “I took the battery out and put it in my phone, so no one can trace me still,” she explains and he’s groaning out loud at her damned ‘ingenuity.’ 

“Melinda, I need you to give the phone back to the policeman,” he explains calmly. Patiently. Even with a forced smile over his gritted teeth despite the fact that he knows she can’t see it. Gah! He hates dealing with drunk Melinda May.

“I can’t do that Phiiiiiil.”

“You can, you really can.”

“I really can NOT.”

“You can, Melinda. Just walk over to the policeman and slip the phone back into his pocket without him noticing as you pass. You’ve done this a thousand times.”

“No, I can NOT do that Phil because the policeman went off to get back-up.”

Oh shit.

“After I hit him for trying to steal my phone.”

Double shit.

 

“Melinda, where the hell are you?!”

 

x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas Everyone :D


	9. Skye - DAISY!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Do NOT take that phone off mute, Agent Johnson,” he orders after her. He may be half dressed in Captain America pyjama bottoms but he is still the Director around here._

Chapter 9 - Skye-Daisy!

“Sky- _Daisy _,” he says as soon as she swings back the door revealing a very sleep mussed *young* *agent* he reminds himself in very revealing nightwear.__

__“Rocking the jammies, Director,” her own comment has him quickly looking down realising that quite embarrassingly that the first pair his hands fell upon were the novelty Captain America bottoms, complete with little slogans and cartoon versions of Cap punching Hitler (something he knows never actually happened! Also, something that Melinda had threatened to correct for him with a few sharpie markers). Still, it’s not the most embarrassing situation he’s ever found himself in. The secret is simply to pretend to be entirely at ease with the situation even when one’s state of dress… or undress is a little… questionable. He’s almost proud of Fitz for not mentioning anything earlier._ _

__“Daisy, I need you to trace a call,” he says lifting up the phone between them in wordless instruction._ _

__She reaches out to take it just as the words reach his ears - _“Dayyyyyseeeeyy, Daaaaayyyyseeeeyyy, gimme your arrrrserdooo-”_ and he grabs for the phone back, hurriedly attempting to switch the call to mute, knowing full well that he will have to hand over the phone and does not need to be answering any uncomfortable questions about this call later. _“DAAAAAAAAYYYYYSSS-”_ he may have hit the speaker button in his haste before finding mute._ _

__“Was that-” Sk-Daisy starts to ask, her eyes suddenly brightly awake and glowing with intended mischief._ _

__“Classified,” he dead pans. He will not be the one to disclose the fact that Melinda May, drunk or drugged or otherwise inebriated, was singing at the top of her voice… badly. Very badly. He might not survive the experience if he did so. Not when she found out. And yes, she aaaaalways finds out._ _

__The smirk on S-Daisy’s face says very clearly that he’s not fooling anyone._ _

__He raises the finger of doom TM with the eyebrow of greater doom to really reinforce the seriousness of what he has to say. “Class-I-fied,” he over enunciates and just prays that beneath the obvious grinning she is taking this seriously and will not speak on pain of death. His death most likely._ _

__“Trace,” he instructs, handing over the phone and she spins away still smiling with a “Yes, sir, Director, sir,” that he probably ought to do something about but honestly he’s just too tired to be dealing with two children right now._ _

__“Do NOT take that phone off mute, Agent Johnson,” he orders after her. He may be half dressed in Captain America pyjama bottoms but he is still the Director around here and still very capable of giving firm orders, which he expects to be obeyed thank you very much!_ _

__The door closes gently behind her but he’s fairly sure she mumbles an affirmative. His steps slow slightly as it hits his conscious thoughts just how bad Sk-Daisy is really at following orders._ _

__He’s half way down the corridor when he hears her overly loud exclamation of “CHILDREN!?!” and about turns, hurriedly rushing back to the doorway that swings open just in time for the phone upheld in her hand to spew out in Melinda May’s pissed off voice “Yes, Phil gave me children!”_ _

__Skye’s pursed lips attempting not to laugh uncontrollably are only slightly less concerning than the accusing eyebrow, which he knows she’s learned from Melinda Gods damn it! He’s just about to try to rush out an explanation when the damned phone pipes up again-_ _

__“And I hate him for it! I didn’t even WANT children!”_ _

__x_ _

__

__“Director...?” Sky- _Daisy_ starts and bloody hell he really needs to get his brain to just get over that change already but it’s not exactly his first concern. His first concern is the continuing NOISE coming from that God damned phone, which he swipes quickly out of the air from a slightly stunned _Daisy_ bringing it up to his mouth. _ _

__“Melinda, shut up for a minute.” Yeah, yeah, he knew even as he finished saying it that it was the wrong thing to say. You do not tell Melinda May to shut up. Not even when she’s drunk and unlikely to remember it the next morning. Not even when you’re probably a million miles away from her and therefore… potentially… safe from her retribution. Not even a trillion-_ _

__He covers the phone speaker quickly with a hand (the mute button is far too inconveniently located and far too close to speaker) and the slurred death threats continue muffled behind it to ask, “Did you find her?”_ _

__“Hmm? Oh, no. Didn’t get that far before she told me you got her pregnant!” Daisy replies and she really, really needs to wipe that smug smirk from her face because he is really not in the right frame of mind to deal with all of this at, checks watch, yep, half past far-too-damned-early-in-the-morning!_ _

__“Find her. Now,” he manages to say through gritted teeth in a very reasonable tone of voice he thinks given the situation at hand. He hesitates to hand the phone back over to her though. He sighs, he knows that she needs the phone if she’s to hook it up and trace the signal back to Melinda, so he does offer it back to her in an open palm, but pleads with his eyes for Daisy to deal with this like a grown-up as he adds “She’s drunk.”_ _

__“Oh I can tell!” Daisy says, snatching the phone, finding the mute button he couldn’t with easy familiarity, and turning to squirrel back into her quarters, launching onto the bed and grabbing up a laptop that nearly went flying on the rebound bounce. “Quick question,” she adds as she settles in place with her legs crossed beneath her, drawing the laptop open, and he finds his head nodding even as his eyes try to find a safe place to step across the floor littered with various clothing, dirty dishes and Urgh is that some kind of mould science experiment she has growing in that carton? This woman is an absolute slob. He’ll have to have a word with her about keeping her room tidy…_ _

__His eyes squint closed and he shakes his head at the passing thought. No. No. He is not Skye’s father. She is an adult. Both reasons mean that she can keep her room as close to a health hazard as she wishes. Environmental health departments have no jurisdiction here._ _

__“If she’s pregnant with your child, should she really be drinking?” the fact that the girl asks that question seriously, sounding a little concerned makes him look up at her in surprise._ _

__“Melinda is not pregnant,” he answers quickly, cursing and hopping a step forward as he stands on something uncomfortable but hidden beneath clothing that looked soft enough for his still bare feet._ _

__She raises the phone up, gesturing at it with her other hand as if to say ‘helloooo, she says different’ without actually saying it. He knows he’s going to get no peace from her until he explains and it’s certainly not going to help him find Melinda any sooner. “Turn her back on speaker,” he instructs with a sigh._ _

__“-and then BEAT youuuu to DEATH with the bloody end. And then… evisssssseration. I love that word. Evissss… errrrrr… ate. It’s fun to say. Evisssserrrrr-”_ _

__“Melinda? What are the kids called?” he interrupts, barely giving her time to speak over him as he drags her drunken mind, hopefully, to another subject._ _

__There’s a moment of hesitation before the expected words come in response over the phone’s speakers: “You f’got - old age, Philp!” Okay, so not quite the expected words but… ah damn it._ _

__“Yes, I’m old. Yes, I’m forgetful.” Look it’s just the easier way to go than arguing with her alright? “Just humour me, please Melinda? Our children. What are they called?”_ _

__“I don’t think I’ve ever won an argument with you that easily. What are you hiding this time Phil?”_ _

__“Me.Lin.Da. Kids. Names.”_ _

__“Oh alright, don’t get your panties in a twist.” Argh! That woman is so confoundedly frustrating! “Well there’s Clint and Tasha, but they’re all grown up now, then there’s Leo and Jemma, God I miss them so much, and then there’s little Skye…” she says and he looks to Sky-Daisy with a see there gesture only to find that her eyes have turned watery, her smile no longer mocking but fragile lips quivering. Oh no. No more crying. Please God no more crying. He can’t deal with the crying. “But Skye doesn’t want me as a mother. I’m not a good mother. Skye has a new mother. A crazy mother. Skye likes her crazy mother. Likes her *sob* more. No one wants me as a mother...” and oh God now they’re both crying!_ _

__“I do! I do! I’m so soo sorry, May. I’m so sorry,” Daisy sobs pitifully down the phone between disgustingly wet inhales._ _

__“Skye?” May’s voice asks suspiciously._ _

__“Yes! Yes, it’s me, May. I’m so sorry. I really am,” she rushes and then they’re talking over one another in a way that he should probably find endearing but actually is just annoying because he can’t follow either side of the conversation and both of them are far too loud trying to be heard and will probably just cause him further headaches. There’s certainly an endless stream of apologies and reassurances from both sides… he’s not sure either can even hear the other over their own sobbing and mumbled words so he doesn’t think anything said relates to either one or the other. But it seems to be kinda cathartic for them both. He sort of hopes Melinda remembers some of this tomorrow. This part at least. She and Skye have needed this release for a while._ _

__Eventually though he has to interrupt, for the sake of his head if nothing else, but yes, they do still need to get out there and ‘rescue’ Melinda before anything else happens…_ _

__“The trace,” he reminds Daisy quietly. Repeatedly._ _

__“Oh,” is her eloquent response as she finally connects a cable to the phone, wiping her eyes and nose with the back of her sleeve in a way that makes him want to tut loudly and hand her a tissue. Restrain the urge, Phil. Restrain it. When she inhales wetly and raises the back of her arm to her nose again he can’t resist grabbing her hand, holding her in place to reach over the side of the bed to a long forgotten looking serviette (from a take-out Chinese order he presumes given the small characters patterned around the edge) and presses it into her hand in wordless admonition to USE it and not her… (bleurgh) sleeve! “Thanks,” she mumbles in a snot choked voice. Double bleurgh!_ _

__“- and my head still hurts, by the way!” Melinda’s voice continues on slowly in the background._ _

__“I’m sorry!” Daisy repeats again. “I’m so soo sorry, May. So sorry. I never meant to hurt you.” He leaves her to it simply because her fingers are at last flying across the keyboard in a way that makes him very envious. It takes forever to type things with two fingers. Well… it’ll be one index finger now he guesses. Dictation is really the way forward…_ _

__

__“Doesn’t make my head hurt any less,” Melinda’s sulking voice could well be mistaken for being that of a three year old refusing to take a nap. He's biting his tongue almost physically to keep from laughing – and to stop himself pointing out that the REASON her head probably hurts right now is unlikely to be the result of their fight MONTHS AGO and far faaaar more likely to be the vast quantities of alcohol imbibed/drugs she was spiked with/generally falling down whilst under the influence of either or both! But he knows better than to tempt a so certain argument just to point out the obvious. He does know better, he tries to convince himself. He does._ _

__“I am so sorry, May. So sorry. Next time-” Daisy says and he’s waving a hand frantically in front of her face to try to stop this line of conversation before she makes the-_ _

__“NEXT TIME?!?” Melinda half shrieks over the phone._ _

__“Er no, what I mean is - Next time, I'll let you win.” – the obvious mistake. That’s what he was going to stop her doing if she’d even cared to turn her gaze towards him rather than swat his hands out of her way. He was going to save her from making the obvious mistake._ _

__“LET ME?!” Melinda positively growls and there’s a resounding crash alongside that says she’s probably leapt to her feet in fury, toppling the chair to the floor behind her. Oh no. Oh hooo no. Danger Will Robinson. Danger! “ _Let_ me win?” Melinda doesn't shout when she gets angry, she goes quieter. Says the words without intonation and lets the receiver's imagination imply all manner of horrors in to that blank state. Daisy’s imagination is obviously running worst case scenarios right now as she freezes in place, face going white and turns her head slowly towards him, eyebrows pleading that he intervene and rescue this._ _

__Nope. He smiles blankly back at her. This is so her problem. She should have listened to him earlier._ _

__Melinda’s voice meanwhile continues her growling rant over the mike “I was kicking ass before you were born, little girl!” Restrain the urge to point out that the statement simply makes her sound old, Phil. Restrain the urge._ _

__“I could kick your ass right now in fact!” Well, he’s certainly not going to be the one to point out that in a re-match between her and Daisy... well obviously Daisy is going to win. She’s SUPER POWERS for fucks sake! There’s no question even in who the winner will be. Spoiler alert: it’s not May._ _

__“I’d pull your brains out with a toothpick! I’d kick your ass so hard it’d knock your teeth out! Your entrails will become your ex-trails! Your moma- er, your grandmother’s teeth’d be rattling I’d kick your ass so hard. I’d kick your ass right here, right now! Hey, where are you anyway?” Melinda’s voice turns from its angry rant of frankly quite ridiculous threats to questioning and suddenly distant sounding._ _

__“Melinda...?” he asks as she goes quiet altogether._ _

__“...Phil? ... Where are you?” Melinda asks after a few moments and it’s hard to make her out amidst the background noise when she’s not so close to the phone._ _

__“What do you mean?”_ _

__“I don't see you anywhere. I hate being small. Can't see a damn thing cos of everyone's stupid bodies,” she rants and yeah he loves her being small. She’s all cute and stuff. Even if she could kill him without breaking a sweat._ _

__“Melinda, we're talking to you on the telephone,” he tells her and he really does try not to sing song it down the line in mockery but ... well..._ _

__“Oh.”_ _

__Yes, oh indeed. He and Daisy both try to stifle their chuckles at her expense but she's some sort of super power that enables her to pick up on the gasps of breath – “stop laughing at me, Philip!”_ _

__“Sorry. *chuckle, snort, gasp* Sorry,” he tries to sound sincere but, well, he’s not. She’s hilarious drunk! “Weren't you talking about kicking ass?” Excellent re-direct if he does say so himself!_ _

__“Hey!” Daisy protests and ouch! Junior agents should not thump Directors on the arm. They simply shouldn't. There must be a rule somewhere about it. Next time he has Hill on the phone he is definitely asking her - she knows all the rules. Doesn't necessarily abide by them but she certainly seems to know them all well enough to hold everyone else to them!_ _

__“Yep. I’m going kick her ass so hard it'll make her grandmother's teeth rattle!”_ _

__“That seems a little extreme,” Daisy tries to protest, presumably emboldend by her recent thumbing of directors enough to take on his 2ic too._ _

__“I'm gonna kick and then hit and then .... kick again probly.”_ _

__“You know I do still have these little powers-” Daisy tries to interrupt and from the glances at him she’s also trying to get him to argue on her behalf. Pfft. He knows better than to take on Melinda. She is on her own with this one._ _

__“I can kick your ass even with your amazing super powers of doom!”_ _

__“No, you can't, May.”_ _

__“I can.”_ _

__“No, May. You really can't.”_ _

__“Can.”_ _

__“Can. NOT.”_ _

__Children. He’s listening to children._ _

__“Come over here and say that to my face!”_ _

__“Come over _here_ and say that to _my_ face!” is the obvious counter._ _

__Although... “Melinda, I have an excellent idea-”_ _

__“Your ideas suck.” Little harsh!_ _

__Okay so some of his best laid plans didn't go quite according to, well, plan but "Not all of them."_ _

__“Most sucky.”_ _

__He ignores her in favour of getting on with things rather than engaging in ANOTHER pointless argument. “If you want to prove you can kick her ass (he's just going to ignore Daisy repeatedly gesturing that he should cut out this line of enquiry) even with her powers (he's also just about managing to keep hold of the phone enough to prevent her from pulling it away before he's finished) then why don't you tell me where you are and I'll drive her over to you.” Ta da, genius at work, he congratulates himself._ _

__“No,” is of course Melinda’s blanket refusal. Stubbornness at work, he sighs._ _

__“Why not? Don’t you want to prove that you are the superior fighter?”_ _

__“Wha?”_ _

__“The better-” Never mind. “Don't you wanna kick Daisy's ass?!_ _

__“Daisy who?” she asks suspiciously in return. “And yes, most likely I will want to kick her ass.”_ _

__“ _Daisy_ Daisy,” he says like that clears it up then shakes his head at himself. _ _

__“Me, May. He means me,” Daisy fortunately tries to clarify. “I'm Daisy now remember.”_ _

__“Stupid Daisy. I don't like Daisy,” Melinda states adamantly and no no no no nooooo the snivelling is making a reappearance. Daisy's eyes suddenly looking very glossy and about to spill tears of doom. How does he end up in these situations?! How?! “I liked Skye. Skye was nice,” Melinda continues and oh thank god the tears appear to have been halted before overflowing as a wet smile emerges from the ashes._ _

__“May –” he can just tell Daisy's going to say something soppy again. And then Melinda's going to say something sickeningly sweet in return and then they're both going to be crying over one another again! - So, he's forced to interrupt before they get re-started._ _

__“You want to prove you can kick Skye's ass though don't you, Melinda?”_ _

__“Yes.”_ _

__“Then tell me where you are. I'll bring her ass to you for kicking.” He shrugs at Daisy by way of an apology - fortunately she seems torn between being soppy, pissed at him and laughing her ass off and is therefore pulling a very strange face at him but taking no action against him about it._ _

__“No, Phillip.” Argh! Gods damn the woman! “Holiday. Away. Away from all of you stupid ... stupid stupid heads.”_ _

__“Melinda, please, don't you want -”_ _

__“Go way, Phil.”_ _

__“Fine, don't tell me where you are! See if I care!” Yes, from the look Daisy is giving him right now he may be acting like a child, but you try coping with a drunk Melinda May and see if it doesn't regress you to toddlerdom! He hands the handset back over to Daisy, still on speaker, and says very simply through very gritted teeth with added eyebrows of emphasis: "Find her. Now."_ _

__Fingers fly across keyboard with appropriate urgency as he and Melinda both sulk in relative silence._ _

__“Got it!” Daisy shouts suddenly with an air thump that makes him jump a little. No one noticed, thank God! That was quick, his mind supplies pleasantly surprised out of his musings. She turns to look at him in question… but he’s not entirely sure what she’s waiting for him to answer so he just shrugs his shoulders looking non-plussed. “What? No, well done Daisy. No, that was damned quick. No, how the hell did you manage to hack through five layers of encryption and firewalls and back trace the signal through all of the satellites and rebounds she has this damn thing set up to ping across half way around the globe? NOTHING?!”_ _

__“Well done, Skye,” Melinda says over the phone in her magical way of turning everything into a deadpan line where the listeners are left wondering whether she’s being wholly sarcastic or genuinely genuine._ _

__Sky-Daisy! Daisy’s lips twist in to a tight line that says she’s not sure quite how to respond to that either… and he’s left smothering his own smirk at her obvious inability to interpret one Melinda May. Yeah, he’s no further along the ladder of how to interpret everything she says but it’s nice not to be the only one floundering for once._ _

__“We’re coming to rescue you,” Daisy deadpans back into the phone and he can’t help the fact that he’s a little jealous he didn’t think to say it first. He’s the one rescuing Melinda damn it! He didn’t invite Skye along. Or Daisy. Daisy is not invited on the Melinda May rescue mission. He wants to get to play hero to Melinda for once._ _

__

__Damn it._ _

__

__x_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ye Gods, is that a little bit of actual plot I see approaching over yonder horizon?!?
> 
> Oh n thanks as always to Devilgrrl for beta-ing (and encouraging) my madness!


	10. Lola, to the Rescue!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rescue mission... of sorts!

Chapter 10 – Lola, to the Rescue!!!

 

That everyone is crowded around Lola by the time he arrives is annoying - he took no longer than four minutes to fling on yesterday’s shirt and suit and race down the hallway to the hanger. That should not have been long enough for Skye to sort out her bed hair and rally (and wake!) the rest of the troops. It usually takes forty minutes and three coffees for Fitz to become aware enough to blink most mornings, how the hell did she get him alert in four minutes?!

And he wanted to be the one to rescue Melinda, damn it!

His appearance stops the conversation (or should that be argument) mid-sentence. For almost a second of blissful silence. Then they all start talking at once at *him* and he can barely make out enough of the jumbled noise to ascertain that they’re arguing about who gets to go rescue May. He tries the Finger of Doom but either due to the early hour, their already agitated states or a complete lack of respect for the Finger of Doom, it goes largely ignored. He is not happy about that. There will be a whole host of additional administrative duties passed down for them all to undertake tomorrow in punishment.

“QUIET!”

“-should still be the one to go,” Daisy continues notwithstanding the Finger and the word he’s just bellowed like he’s been possessed by the ghost of Fury himself.

“Did you not hear me say ‘quiet’?” he asks and everyone else in the room knows that tone, taking two quick steps back and leaving Daisy very much alone out on that limb.

“Yes, but I thought it was important that you-” Daisy continues and he’s frankly almost amazed by the complete lack of understanding of The Tone.

“Daisy.”

“Yes?”

“Be quiet. Now.”

“But-”

“Now, Agent Johnson.”

“Yes, sir,” she mumbles and damn it but she has exactly the same abashed expression that Melinda wears when he’s been an arse to her and all it does it make him feel guilty. Bet Melinda taught it to her on purpose. Melinda! He’s suddenly reminded that there are far more important things to be doing right this moment in time than trying to instil a little discipline in Daisy – a probably impossible task anyway!

“Right,” he starts. Decision time. “None of you are coming.”

That re-starts the clamour that he was hoping to avoid. He ignores the lot of them, pushing beyond them to open Lola’s door intending simply to drive her up in to the quinjet and fly away from the lot of them! He’ll shout at them some more tomorrow over this, after he’s had sleep and probably a few Tylenol for the headache they’re causing him.

When Daisy wrenches open the opposite door he’s tempted to shout at her again about how to properly take care of Lola but the fact that Morse is already pushing *past* her to try to clamour in and bashing into the side of Lola, potentially ruining her paintwork sends his mind in to over drive. He may actually have steam coming out of his ears when Hunter, having apparently given up on the girls’ door altogether places one sweaty probably dirty palm on Lola’s trunk and vaults his legs up and over her precious rear to land _with his shoes_ on Lola’s cream leather seat. Oh he could kill...

When Fitz puts his palm on Lola’s trunk obviously intending to mimic Hunter he grabs for the lad’s wrist, dragging it out from under him and leaving him to stumble with a helpful little push *away* from Lola. The fact that Fitz stumbles and probably that he looks ready to eviscerate the lot of them is enough to make them all stop.

“Sir-” Morse starts apologetically – she’s always been a brave self-sacrificing kind of agent.

“Sir-” Hunter on the other hand is simply interrupting to try to be an idiot, he’s sure of it.

“Direc-” Daisy almost certainly just wants to continue to press her case to be permitted to come with him or to tell him off for almost hurting Fitz – if Melinda was here she’d probably do precisely that.

“Morse let go of that door! Hunter get your SHOES off Lola’s seat! Daisy get out of my car! Fitz if Hunter jumped off a cliff would you follow him?!” Oh dear he’s starting to sound like his mother again.

“Sir,” Morse again but at least she has taken her biting nails off Lola’s beautiful paintwork, “I really do insist that you take me with you. Who else is going to be able to handle May if she’s not thinking straight enough to come voluntarily?” She’s probably right that Melinda could take out any of the rest of them without breaking a sweat if she were so inclined.

“If she’s drunk, probably any of us,” Hunter says and makes obvious his complete failing to understand or properly comprehend the danger that Melinda can pose if this isn’t approached correctly.

“Actually, Agent May's more dangerous drunk,” Fitz enlightens him quietly from his position still sitting on the cold floor of the hanger. He walks across to offer him a hand up as Fitz continues, “It's like she forgets she should hold back.” 

“In which case I withdraw my offer,” Hunter is quick to retract.

“I can take May too you know,” Daisy adds in clearly vying for the spot with Bobbi.

“Daisy, you’re improving but you’re nowhere near-” Bobbi starts.

“I do have these little super powers now, you know,” Daisy snaps back bitingly, “I could take the whole base out.” That’s probably true now that he thinks on it. It’s a little scary too if he’s honest. “I am more than sufficient to take May down if necessary.”

“Of course, Daisy,” Bobbi’s quick to placate her as the ground trembles a little beneath their feet. “But if there are police on site then we probably don’t want to be broadcasting your amazing super powers to the world. Covert is the aim here,” she says and Daisy deflates a little but more importantly the ground stops threatening to throw them off.

“I go. Bobbi goes. We keep it quiet and none of the higher ups ever need to know,” he says decisively in the hopes that everyone will follow their damned orders!

"Sir, you’re the Director," Hunter mumbles and he scoffs at the thought.

“Try telling that to Hill and Fury!" 

“I could go instead of Bobbi,” Daisy tries again like he hasn’t just given a very clear order.

“I have to go; he needs someone who can pilot the quinjet,” Morse continues the argument when his orders should already be the end of it.

“I can fly a plane, Agent Morse,” he snarks back at her a little insulted that she’d even for a moment believe that he could have avoided learning when around Melinda all that time.

The doors banging open with a resounding crash interrupts whatever she had been planning to say as Mack comes hurtling through the door and sprints the fifteen meters across the hanger towards them in a charge that would do a linebacker proud. 

“Good, you’re all still here,” Mack pants as he skids to a stop.

“What took you so long?” Hunter asks him.

“Doing my hair.”

Right, that’s enough dillydallying. “Mack, you hold the fort. Hunter, you’re not coming-”

“But I want to see a drunk May,” Hunter whines.

“And that is precisely why you’re not going,” is Morse’s helpful contribution.

“But-”

“May would kill you,” he reminds Hunter firmly. “And then she’d kill me,” he mutters to himself. “Morse, you-“

“Come with you to fly the plane,” Morse interrupts and didn’t they just sort that like two seconds ago? But she gives him a look that says he’s going to have to fight her on it and ... well... discretion is sometimes the better part of valour.

“I... yeah, you can fly.”

"Daisy-" 

"I'm coming." 

"You're... yeah, okay you can come," he concedes – because EARTHQUAKE powers. She jumps in to Lola’s front seat with a little ‘yay’ that almost makes him smile and he hurries to jump in the driver’s side to FINALLY get this rescue mission off the ground.

"See this is so unfair,” Hunter immediately starts, of course, because when can Hunter ever avoid complaining if there is even the minutest potential complaint to be made. “It's like sexism backwards. They just look at him with those big googly eyes-" 

"Sir?"

"Fitz, you-" 

"Come on board in case you need any help locating Agent May with technology and... ... stuff." 

"..." He could say no, he knows he could but what if he got there and couldn’t find her and actually did need Fitz’ help again... he nods the lad towards the quinjet and Fitz hurries on in before he changes his mind. 

"See!? See? That wasn't even a real excuse. He just said 'and stuff' and that got him on board. Favouritism. Blatant favouritism!" Hunter continues. He starts up Lola’s engines quite pleased that the sound drowns out Hunter’s continuing whining as he drives up and into the quinjet hearing the sounds of Morse bringing the engines online even before the ramp is closed leaving the two malcontents behind.

"Beer?" Mack asks Hunter probably just to try to stop the complaining.

"Beer.”

 

x

 

It takes them a half hour to reach their intended landing point. Half an hour with Melinda out of contact, potentially resisting arrest, and getting in to who knows how much more trouble. Half an hour of him frantically pacing back and forth across the garage in front of Lola while the other two shoot him worried glances in turn.

Half an hour... he’s not wasting any more time once they land. He's in the driver seat, turning her over and not wasting any more time for them to sort themselves out as they all attempt to pile on in to the same damned seat! He’s reversing out of the back at speed before the exit ramp is fully down, uncaring of the girlish shrieks as hands grab for limbs and practically drag Morse down atop the rest of them to keep her from flying out. He wrenches the wheel to the left, rams the stick in to first, says apologies silently to Lola for the harsh treatment and hears her tires squeal as she lurches forwards, racing to the rescue at his command!

He chances a quick look to ensure that everyone is more or less securely within the vehicle as he bounces her down the curb on to a paved road where he can really open her up. That the three of them have managed to fit is frankly beyond the abilities of his tired mind to comprehend. That Morse is half lying, half sitting across the two of them, Daisy spitting blond hair out of her face repeatedly and Fitz’ totally failing to feign looking comfortable whilst keeping his hands entirely away from even mistakenly brushing against Morse’s ass - It’s almost hilarious enough to make up for the risk of being stopped.

“We’re okay, Director. Let’s go rescue May,” Skye reassures him from somewhere behind Morse’s hair before pushing her almost bodily on to poor shocked Fitz to reach around her. “I’ve got her location all programmed in to the Satnav,” Sky-Daisy continues as she reaches forwards with the device-

“Noooooooo,” he shouts instantly, slamming on the brakes and reaching across the distance quickly to save her, hand grabbing for Daisy’s wrists before the suction cup can meet the windscreen in a horrific circling stain of doom. Everyone looks at him shocked but he’s no time to deal with them as he lectures S-Daisy. “You do not EVER stick the Satnav or anything else to Lola. Not EVER. Do you understand?” he berates her firmly but fairly, he feels.

“Yes, sir,” she mumbles looking down suitably abashed.

“The rest of you?” he enquires, chancing a glare at them as well. Might as well make this a lesson for all.

A chorus of ‘yes, sirs’ sounds. One “I don’t see what the big deal is - ooomf – I mean, yes, sir,” which he chooses to accept as good enough. 

“I’ll just… hold it... for now,” Daisy confirms quietly and he slides Lola back in to first gear.

“Or... we could just follow the sirens,” Bobbi proffers as two police units ricochet past them at even greater speed. Shit. He floors the gas, sorry Lola, and hopes like hell that the police are the only sirens rushing towards Melinda’s position... and not a paramedic.

 

x

 

The phone rings unexpectedly loudly in the open topped car and he thrusts it over to Daisy before regaining his grip on the steering wheel enough to wrench Lola forcefully around a corner without *quite* losing control. He keeps his eyes and attention on the road where it needs to be if he’s to get them all to Melinda in one piece at this level of speed – even at night there are too many drivers on the road that he has to pass, undercut and just plainly bully out of his damned way! Not to mention the oncoming trucks blaring their horns at him when he needs to borrow their lane for a little while!

He’s still half listening in to the half of the conversation he can hear over the rushing wind, revving engine and goddamn the rude horns!

“May?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Well... I don’t know really. How do I prove it’s really me?” Ha! Welcome to the world of conversations with a drunken Melinda May, Daisy.

“No, I’m not a recording.”

“No, a recording wouldn’t say that.”

“May, I’m ME!” Pfft. Like that’s going to convince Melinda!

“Honestly.”

“Why would I lie about tha-”

“Daisy, put her on speaker,” he instructs because frankly as entertaining as it might be for Daisy to be wound up, it is actually getting them nowhere and he could do with knowing what’s going on her end. “May.” No, he’s not going to open with saying ‘it’s Phil’. She’d only find the obvious question of how he should prove he’s him and end up back in this endless loop of conversation. “She really is Daisy.”

“Howwww can you be suurre?” comes her distorted and still slurring voice.

“I picked out fake May didn’t I? I can spot a fake Daisy a mile off.” Okay, so maybe he didn’t tell her how long it had taken for him to spot fake May... or that he’d not really been certain until he’d actually landed that punch to her face. Real May would have caught his wrist and made him regret the attempt.

“Okay,” Melinda says simply and that seems to be sufficient - Yes! “Phil, why does Daisy have your phone?”

“Because I’m driving and can’t do both at the moment,” he answers honestly, his attention taken by a sudden left and changing lights he can’t quite make safely but runs anyway.

“Oh.”

“Tell me what’s happening on the ground,” he grits out as they rock back around a right again.

There’s a long pause followed by an audible sigh from her end of the call. “You know I never know what’s happening on the ground.” Huh? That makes – “You know he hid a helicarrrrryyyy – a hellyyy car – a helicopter-or behind my back?”

“The helicarrier was a secret, remember Melinda? I didn’t tell anyone.”

“You were both trying to hide it from Mack and me, May,” Bobbi chirps in and yeah, he appreciates she’s probably trying to help but see Melinda’s-

“You’re a lying bitch, Barbara Morse.”

-really not going to see it that way. Daisy is in fits of giggles at the slurred insult and he’s certain the muffled chuckles are Fitz behind her. Fortunately, Morse appears to see the funnier side of this too... or is at least feigning taking it like a trooper.

“You know I don’t like being called ‘Barbara’, May.” 

“Stupid lying bitch.”

“Melinda!” Now, that’s a bit too far, especially the tone, which even drunk could cut glass.

“You’re no better, Mr Lying Director Sir.” Yeah yeah. How many times must he apologise for doing his job? He really should do something about the way Daisy’s cackling undisguisedly at his expense.

“Mel-”

“You know he was seeing my ex-husband behind my back?” she continues, talking right over the apology he intended to give for the... forty-eighth time is it now?

“That...” He sighs then brakes sharply losing all oxygen he’s intended to use as the belts dig painfully in. He gears down and floors it again taking her out of the forced slide and back in to the main stream of traffic. 

“There I am worrying about him and he’s sneaking around with my ex,” she continues, crackling slightly as they lose a bit of signal but unfortunately very much able to be made out.

“That is really not how she made it sound,” he tries half heartedly to cover as he dodges left, right, right again and juuust slips back to the left before they made a nice pattern of their own all over the front of the oncoming barrier.

“You and the shrink, AC?" Daisy teases and honestly as much as the subject is annoyingly frustrating it is nice that she’s back to feeling comfortable enough with him to tease. He’s missed this lack of formality between them recently.

“Bleurgh! Gross! Brain wipe. I need a brain wipe!” and that those words just came over the phone in the voice of one very relaxed sounding Melinda May and not from the passenger that he expects that kind of behaviour from sets his expression to astonished and then the both of them to laughing uncontrollably as their eyes meet in the mirror. Melinda May just said ‘gross’ and ‘brain wipe’ in the same conversation.

“Ociffer!” Officer? Oh shit. “No.”

“Melinda? Melinda! Give the phone to the officer! Melinda!” he shouts hoping to be heard over the phone and stomps his foot down harder on the gas despite the fact that it will go no further.

“No, you can’t have it. I need it. I need to talk to Phil. He’s a zombie but shush, don’t tell anyone.”

“MELINDA!”

“I said ‘no’!”

“Melinda, let me speak with the policeman.”

“No means no, jackass!”

“Melinda!” 

There’s a thump. General sounds of a scuffle. Glass breaking. A few more dull thuds. 

Then, like lead to his own stomach, the unmistakeable sound of a gunshot.

 

x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks as always to Devilgrrl for making things readable!
> 
> Anyone who wants to scream out loud at the season break teaser, feel free to do so and join me because OH MY GOD!!!!


	11. Let them win, please Melinda...

Chapter 11 – Let them win, please Melinda...

 

He has zero consideration for Lola's beautiful tyres as he bounces her unapologetically up on to the sidewalk next to four already parked and dramatically flashing police units. SWAT is here. That's not good. 

His eyes scan the area quickly as he moves, taking it all in. They locate Melinda first, she’s his priority.

She's alive. She's okay. He repeats it as a mantra inside his mind, tries to force his thoughts to a semblance of sense, control his rapidly pounding pulse.

She's sitting on the steps of the old town hall, curled in to a small ball half way up. Alone. Shivering lightly in a way that melts his heart. Where is her jacket?!

He'd give her his without hesitation if it weren't for the armed riot squads that sit stationary at an assumed safe distance behind long stone planters running either side of the stairs, their rifles pointed unerringly at her vulnerable form. As he watches others are running behind those already positioned, to try to take the high ground, hemming her in as she sits unmoving. She's unhurt, he reminds himself. That’s something at least.

He saw the ambulance but the paramedics are off to one side. He moves to get a better angle – six officers in various states of injury. Minor injuries, he corrects. At least minor for the two still standing. Three more appear unconscious and it’s these the medics are directed to check first.

“PUT the weapons down and PUT your hands above your head,” the slightly modulated voice comes over the loud speaker well… loudly. He needs to get in there.

“Who’s in charge here?” he shouts to the surrounding world. “I am Special Agent Phil Coulson with the FBI. This woman is a known to be dangerous and wanted fugitive." He plays up his authority and the tension knowing everyone likes someone else to be in charge when there’s something potentially scary going down, it’s a universal constant. "You are ordered to hold your fire. She has information that the United States requires. We need her taken in alive! So I ask again, who was in charge here?” Heads nod and arms point in one solid direction and he marches quickly to meet with the slightly rumpled looking Sheriff to begin the negotiation over jurisdiction (of which he has precisely none), who is going to get the credit (of which there is precisely none to be had) and most importantly who gets to call out the shots and get the cuffs on her (as if anyone else can get handcuffs on Melinda May – drunk or otherwise!).

 

x

 

It only takes minutes for him to convince them to hand over control of the negotiations and the loud speaker, to let him take point on apprehending so dangerous a fugitive alive. They do force him to waste precious seconds getting into a tac vest before permitting him closer to the situation. He understands why almost immediately upon rounding the vehicles.

May has all the weapons.

At least that's how it appears when he takes into account the sheer number of black metal pieces she has laid out across multiple steps surrounding her position. An almost regular design of her own drunken devising. The fact that they're completely dismantled explains why they haven't yet fired to take her out. She's probably still fast enough to put a weapon together before they overrun her position to overpower her but then they've no way of knowing just how fast Melinda May can move when under threat. The fact that she's taken possession of at least six weapons should have clued them in - idiots!

"Hold your fire," he repeats over the loud speaker immediately. He really cannot stress that order enough. If one of these idiots even thinks about shooting her- he shakes his head, reminds himself that the way to resolve this is to get Melinda to walk far enough away from the guns that he can physically approach her position to 'apprehend' her and whisk her away from her. Take her home. Keep her safe. "Melinda May," he shouts and boy is this loud speaker thing loud! Even with his voice distorted she seems to perk up immediately upon hearing him, head raising to look around, eyes skittering from point to point. He waves - what?! She was looking for him. Of course he's gonna wave. 

"This is Agent Phil Coulson. I'm the one with the loud speaker waving at you," he covers for the teams watching and wondering why on earth a specialist agent would begin negotiations by waving at an armed and dangerous fugitive like she's a friend. She stands almost immediately, takes three swift steps towards his position - "STAND STILL!" his order is accompanied by the unmistakeable sound of oh so many safeties being taken off. Her training takes precedence, her legs stopping in place immediately. Her upper body wobbling. "HOLD your fire!" he repeats. It's worth repeating. However many times required to get Melinda out of this without any bullet holes. In almost slow motion her arms come up out to her sides, waft uncoordinated, upper body leaning forwards, overbalancing but her feet appear glued to the ground... and down she goes.

He's two steps closer in a ridiculous attempt to catch her before Morse's arm across his chest brings him back to the present. He notes her grabbing for Fitz and Daisy too - seems the other two had taken the same unconscious steps to try to help. It makes him smiles despite the situation. It's nice to know so many people care about Melinda, even if she might try to ignore it.

She's caught herself on the next step down, on one knee and her hands, in amongst the piles of weapons. She looks disgusted at the fact that she's fallen. Furious with herself. She pushes herself back up to a wavering standing position and he hears the inhales of the officers surrounding her, the ramp up in tension when she bends with hands outstretched towards the weapons she's disturbed. "HOOOOLD," he orders again. 

"Melinda, don't," he cautions. Of course she does. "Put it down, Melinda," he tries. Of course she ignores him. "Melinda May!" he eventually shouts in frustration and she turns her whole body around to look down at him.

"It's wrong," she shouts. At least he's pretty sure that's what she shouts. It's hard to make out her words over the distance, over the sirens, over the rushing of his blood pounding through his veins.

"Put the gun down, Melinda," he tries to coax her. If she just puts it back down they'll all relax. If she just takes two more steps away then he'll be allowed beyond the barricade. He can go get her. Hold her. Shake some damned sense in to her!

'Not a gun'? That what he thinks he hears anyway. How the hell is it not a gun?!

"Put it down, Melinda!"

'It's a shield'? Oh really now. God he hates drunk Melinda May! How the hell is a gun, or any part of one, a shield!?! 

He says nothing to challenge her as she takes two overly large steps backwards, down the stairs towards him, away from the guns. Wills her to move further. Further. Just one more step. 

She gestures towards him, shouts something he simply can't hazard a guess at, then gestures back at the spread out pieces like everything should make sense if he just looks... wait a minute. He waves a hand at her, beckons her to move left some more out of his view so that he can see and, yes, if he turns his head sideways and squints his eyes just so... it's SHIELD. She's laid out all the parts of those shining black weapons across the stairs to form their logo. Their very much still a secret organisation logo. In the middle of a huge potential shoot out with at least fifty gobsmacked onlookers not to mention the officers trained intently on her position and those exact weapons. Bloody hell, May! Did anyone ever teach her the meaning of covert!

He's going to be eating out on this for years!

At least she's far enough away now that they'll let him approach. "Melinda, I'm coming to you now. Just stay RIGHT THERE. Nobody fire!" He hands the loud speaker off to Morse, she's a clever girl, she'll keep them calm, keep the bullets from flying at either of them whilst he concentrates on getting Melinda safely in cuffs and away.

 

x

 

It takes him less than a minute to race up the stairs to close on her position as she stands weaving slightly to a tune only she knows. "Melinda?" he interrupts her cautiously. He's not so foolish to race in and startle her. That wouldn't end well for either of them. 

"Hmmm..."

"Melinda," he says a little more firmly and she opens her eyes finally to look at him.

"Phiiiil!" She swarms happily. He grabs for her arms as she launches herself at him, shouting quickly for no one to fire at the seemingly sudden ‘attack’ by the fugitive, hears Morse over the loud speaker tersely echoing his words.

"Melinda... I need you to concentrate now. Focus!"

"Phil. I like you Phil," she mumbles finding waaay too much interest in the button on his shirt that is apparently ‘shiny’. And oh if he never hears Melinda say shiny in that childlike voice again he will be a very happy man.

Still. Situation. Could really do with resolving about now.

“Agent Coulson?” Oh he’s really missed just being Agent Coulson. Maybe he could ask for a demotion? Or a transfer. He could be FBI. No save the world nonsense then for him to deal with. No need to hide a helicarrier from his best friend ‘just in case’. The hours would probably be better too. It’d be boring but he could do it. “Are you alright there, sir?”

Focus. Right. “Fine thank you. I’m just... apprehending the prisoner...” The prisoner who appears to be quite happily leaning her entire body against him for support as she rubs her thumb over the bottom button of his shirt. 

"Melinda!" He snaps, trying to snap her out of this drunken funk.

No response except further stroking of the ‘pweeeetty’ button. Damn the woman for making him do this! 

He pushes her away far enough that she blinks up at him confused. Grits his teeth.

Then he slaps her. 

Hard enough that she raises a hand to her face. Hard enough that his palm stings. Hard enough that there are tears in her eyes. Hard enough that he knows she is going to be furious tomorrow. He accepts the return slap that her betrayed eyes telegraph approximately thirty seconds before her brain actually gives the instruction for her uncoordinated limbs to hit him back, that her hand more rolls down his face than hits it is slightly amusing. The punch he’s anticipating receiving tomorrow if she remembers this part of her evening’s entertainment will be far more painful, of that he’s no doubt!

"Melinda, look around," he coaxes. She does so swiftly, turning her head from one side to the other, taking in all of the surrounding weapons. "You see all the nice officers with their shiny guns."

"They don’t look nice," she replies and honestly he's just grateful she's finally back noticing surroundings and responding a little more rationally!

"Well trust me - they are nice."

She looks at him, face scrunched as her eyes cast intently about his face, suddenly serious. "I do trust you," she says after a moment of consideration. Her faith makes his entire existence seem lighter somehow. "But you lie." Well for a moment it did. Hello reality. 

"I do," he concedes. It's part of the job.

"You lie a lot."

"I’m not lying this time."

And with the simple reasoning of the drunk she simply shrugs, nods and says okay. If only his life was this simple usually to deal with. Well... okay so maybe the rest of this evening’s antics have been anything but simple. Still, it’s good to know she still trusts him... sort of... that kind of makes up for the entire event... doesn’t it? Now he just needs to get her out of here without arousing too much suspicion from the locals. He’s already planning to spirit her away in a bright red corvette with a veritable circus of characters stuffed atop one another in the passenger seat. That’s hardly discrete. 

Shit, how are they going to fit?! He'll just have to leave Morse. Maybe Fitz too though that is a risk. He can't leave Daisy, much as she's a pain in his ass May would kill him if he left Daisy alone in a strange place. She'll probably sulk at him for leaving Fitz too. She's not gonna care if he dumps Morse here though. Not for a while.

“Sir, do you need a hand?” Morse. Oh thank God a potential distraction.

“Just keep everyone from shooting at us if you please Agent Morse,” he says without clarifying exactly how she’s to do that. She’s a clever girl, with many assets, she’ll figure something out.

“Bobbi’s here? I like Bobbi. Sometimes I even let her win," Melinda gushes at him. Okay, so no leaving Morse here either then. Make up your mind, Melinda!

“Well I need you to straighten up and let me put these handcuffs on you so that the nice policemen with guns don’t shoot us both, okay?”

She looks around again. Obviously doing so. Then looks back at him. He does not like the gleam of mischief in her eyes or the smirk that so seldom graces her features. The two combined spell trouble of the possibly dishonourable discharge and criminal proceedings variety.

"Melinda no."

She only smiles wider at that.

"No. Melinda, I am serious."

"I can take them," she says full of confidence. He looks around at the sheer number of personnel and guns surrounding them all at a fairly standard ‘safe’ distance. Rows upon rows of gleaming dark muzzles all focused upon one tiny little Asian woman. Yeah... she probably could.

He grabs her arm before she can do much more than start to spin away from him. "Melinda, you need to let the policemen win right now."

"No, I don’t."

"Yes, you do."

"Don’t."

"Do."

"Don’t."

"Do."

"Don’t."

"Don’t."

"Do."

"See, you agree. You do."

"What were we talking about?"

Argh! "Okay, Melinda. You like Bobbi and you let her win right?"

"Yeeeeesssss," she looks at him suspiciously.

"And you let her win because otherwise she might feel bad about losing all of the time?

"Yeeeeesssss."

"So lets not make the nice policemen feel all bad by you kicking their collective asses okay?"

"Okay," she says with a bright smile and then turns and (damn it!) waves at all the friendly policemen, shouting to them as she turns ‘you win.’ He grits his teeth at the not very fugitive like behaviour.

“Stand down people, she’s coming in quietly!” he shouts to the masses at large in an attempt to make progress on his sudden good fortune.

He quickly slips the handcuffs onto her wrists, ignoring her ‘ooooh kinky’ and further ignoring her ‘I do like kinky’ even if it takes all of his inner strength to do so. 

His quickly shrugs out of his jacket to wrap it around her shoulders to protect her a little more from the cold than her vest top does now that he finally can. There's a part of him that loves the fact that she turns her head immediately in to the collar and inhales before sighing and smiling, wrapping it tighter about herself.

He quickly grabs for the handcuffs that she’s shrugged off in turn before they hit the ground and shielding the fact that she's already escaped them from view quickly with his body. “Melinda, you need to keep the handcuffs on.”

“Why?”

Argh!

“Because.”

“That’s not a reason.”

“It’s a game.” Well done, brain!

“A kinky game?” her eyes narrow at him and he is left with absolutely no idea which of the two possible answers is going to garner her co-operation. And which might leave him with a broken nose!

“Do you want it to be a kinky game?” he tries for clarification.

“With you?” she asks, eyes narrowing further.

Argh! Fine. “Yes, with me.”

A shy smile lights her face, a little spark of mischief barely hidden within those dark eyes. “Okay,” she says simply and giggles in a way that makes him think all the naughty thoughts.

“Sir, are you okay up there?” Morse interrupts bringing his thoughts back on track.

“I’m bringing her down now. No one fire.” He orders loudly, shakes his head to clear it and helps her down the stairs. When she stumbles and almost falls for the second time he picks her up and carries her down instead, ignoring her arguing that ‘she’s fiiiiine’, to ‘put her down’, and that she ‘isn’t even drunk!’ I kid you not! 

 

x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God I love drunk May :D


	12. Chapter 12 - Vampire!!! (Yes, you read that right)

Chapter 12 - Vampire!!! (Yes, you read that right)

 

The sound of squealing tires redirects his gaze from the steps he's been oh so carefully watching so as not to accidentally misjudge the position and send them both falling to the floor. He appreciates that he's being overly cautious but Melinda's had more than enough incidents today without him flinging her down the steps as well!

It's an unmarked black SUV that tears with unnecessary speed around the corner up ahead of their position, drives far too direct a course towards them to be coincidental, and bounces unhesitatingly up the sidewalk right far too damn close to poor Lola! Actually, that black SUV looks remarkably similar to the black SUV currently sitting in his quinjet's cargohold...

And the two getting out of the vehicle look remarkably similar to the two agents that are currently SUPPOSED to be staying back on base. Two agents that he ORDERED to remain on base in fact.

"Ooooh look, Phil. It's Hunter and Mack," Melinda tells him cheerily what his mind has already managed to make out. 

The fact that the two of them have smuggled aboard the quinjet is... well, not exactly surprising in the circumstances. That Morse cheerily greets them with a simple "late again" says she knew damn well they'd snuck aboard. He's half a mind to throw her in a holding cell! Their actions were in blatant defiance of his incredibly clear orders, thank you very much! She should have reported it immediately! And, no, he's not annoyed because she noticed and he didn't. It's simply that she should have reported it to him. That's why Morse deserves time in solitary holding. Not because he missed it. He had other things on his mind. He was upstairs planning how to rescue Melinda. He was concentrating fully on their top priority. He expected his agents to follow orders for gods sakes! Argh! He's just as good a spy as Morse damn it!!

"Hunter's a silly name, you know, Phil," Melinda tells him earnestly. He's forced to agree with her there, but he's sense enough not to begin a conversation over it with her, choosing instead to continue watching his feet down the steps to get her home without further argument or incident - please someone up there let there be no further incidents! "Laa-ance Hun-terrrr - sounds like a detective from the seventies. Mack's silly too. Mack Mackenzie. Sounds like he should be a superhero all ally-al-alit-"

"Alliterative?" he offers.

"Huh?"

"You were saying Mack should be a superhero because you think his name alliterates, _Melinda Maay_ ," he emphasises but her blank look says she's still way too drunk to follow him. Or too drugged, the thought hits him unbidden and worry makes his chest ache for the following three breaths as he hurries his steps to get her down.

He carries her down the steps, pushes through the crowds of questioners without providing answers and around the back of the SUV out of sight of the masses of SWAT now disarming and no doubt completely bewildered at the turn of events. Leaves Morse to her talking somewhere out there trying to unruffle feathers and excuse the inexcusable simply because he doesn't want to let Melinda out of his sight again so soon.

It's admittedly a relief that Morse blocks them, fields the enquiries he doesn't have the patience to deal with when all he wants is Melinda safely home to get checked out. However much she might hate it! He sits her down on Lola's bonnet with only limited concern of scratching her paintwork. Melinda is far more important. He wishes now that Morse were here to check on her straight away. He's of no use to Melinda in a medical knowledge sense. It was stupidly selfish to leave their only medically trained agent to do the cover! He almost leaves Melinda to go deal with the cover story himself but turns straight in to Bobbie's... er... hmm... chest as she barrels directly past him to begin checking Melinda's pupil responsiveness.

"Fucking light of a thousand suns!" Melinda swears unreservedly loudly and whilst he agrees those penlights all medics seem to have about their person could be a little less intense he's still going to have to shush her somehow from complaining quite so loudly within hearing reach of so many curious ears! 

He knows better than to try shushing her though. Oh, how he knows! So he just grabs the nearest arm - Hunter's - propelling him forwards to stand immediately in front of Melinda with a "Hey, Melinda, what do you think of Hunter?" Yeah, it's a little cruel but the redirection works immediately - both Hunter and May eyeing each other up, considering, for several minutes of blessed silence as Morse works before Melinda speaks.

"You're an ass," she tells Hunter fiercely leaving Hunter at a surprising loss for words as the sheer vehemence with which she says it. "But I like you," Melinda continues in a more neutral tone, patting Hunter's arm with little inhibition and definitely leaving them all gob smacked thereafter as she turns her sights very deliberately towards her next target - Mack.

"You..." Melinda starts and then hesitates, seems she's at a loss for words as Mack waits expectantly for the insult and compliment she's about to bestow. "You're... you're capable. I respect that," she says with finality then moves on. 

Morse shifts a blood pressure cuff on to Melinda's arm, perhaps unwisely drawing the attention back to her. "You're too difficult to read, Barbara."

Morse says something Mandarin in response, a clustering of swift words he struggles to translate at speed but seems something along the lines of "hate being called Barbara, _Quolian_ ". It's said with a sidelong smile and without any trace of heat or upset on Morse's part but the fact she's chosen to switch languages so only the two of them converse raises a small niggle of concern within the back of his mind.

"Too damn smart. Never know if you're as good as you seem... or playing me for a fool," Melinda replies. She's shared such doubts with Phil before of course, but never has she come straight out and said them so bluntly. Honesty has often been one of Melinda's faults - whether drunk or sober. She just tends to express it more when drunk.

Morse laughs. A bubbling undisguisedly happy laugh that sends hairs raising along the back of Phil's neck for reasons he cannot rationalise. "Thanks for the compliments, but I doubt I could play you for the fool even when drunk... and I remain loyal to Shield."

Melinda's hum gives away little of her private thoughts before the exchange only Phil seems to feel is tense beneath the jovial exterior is interrupted.

"And me?" Daisy's quiet voice asks anxiously from somewhere in the vicinity of his right shoulder. That Daisy is worried about Melinda's response after everything that they've been through is obvious to everyone. He's probably the only one not worried about it. He knows Melinda well. Knows she's already forgiven Daisy. Knows Daisy just has to forgive herself.

He knows and yet he's still unprepared as Melinda unexpectedly launches herself off Lola, beyond the reach of his tentatively supportive arms, pushing forcefully past him to hug Daisy tightly to her. She's lucky he grabs and counterbalances enough to keep them both somehow on their feet! 

Daisy's stunned, doesn't seem to know where to put her hands or what to do in response to the 'attack', for all of three long seconds before she smiles and hugs Melinda back twice as hard. They laugh/sob, grapple more tightly and both hide their faces down on the other's shoulder. The rest of them are left to stand around in shock, raised eyebrows and unvoiced questions upon their lips as the two embrace seemingly without intention to ever let go, the light hiss of whispered words passing between the two unheard. Shoulders move in a pattern that tells of sobs. Hands rubbing over backs in comforting caresses. Faces wet with tears as they reappear from the embrace, faces that are hurriedly wiped on hands and sleeves - when he could have sworn he'd given Daisy a handkerchief only hours earlier to use instead!

They break apart without comment and no one in their small group seems to want to disturb the peace by adding unnecessary words. Not even Hunter appears to want to ruin this for them. He can't help but smile to himself. He loves drunk Melinda just a little bit more right now for her open care for all their agents. He knows she cares, of course he does. They all know it. But to openly show it is something Melinda holds in reserve, as though scared she'll somehow taint them by her caring.

"Leo?" Melinda seems to ask so much in that one quiet question as she stands looking so small and alone that he just wants to wrap her up so the world can never hurt her again.

A sad smile touches Fitz' lips - bitter, deprecating yet hopeful. "Nothing yet," his says. That Fitz is reporting to her so simply, so succinctly, the complete hopelessness of his ongoing work to try to locate Agent Simmons is heart breaking. He knows that Fitz has been working both in and outside of Shield to try to find every scrap of evidence he can to... DO something. Anything. Any shred of a hint of a whisper of something, some sort of information, that might help him. That might help her. Simmons. He wishes now that he'd helped the lad more. Even when he knew it was hopeless.

That Melinda's helping him is not a surprise.

Melinda takes a step towards Fitz, arm raised with fingers reaching out to touch beneath his chin, raise his eyes to meet her own, to judge for herself how he is coping, another quiet questioning "Leo?" forcing him to respond.

"I'm fi- " he starts but she's already moving closer, far closer than she would normally allow anyone in to her personal bubble of space, himself excluded of course. 

She grabs at Fitz' arm, catching it successfully on the third try (oh how he's biting his lip not to laugh at her drunken attempts and ruin the moment!). She gives Fitz an intent stare, daring him maybe to resist? Or maybe just trying to focus on his face to make sure she's got the right person? (He reminds himself forcefully not to laugh at her!) then pulls at the unmoving Fitz to try to tug him into a hug too. After several tugs at the unmoving form, she huffs in annoyance and snaps "Will you just hug me already!" (Must not laugh!) After flinching away at the bite of her words Fitz, slightly sheepishly, does so, enfolding her in a perfunctory hug she soon snuggles closer into, holding tightly wound around the lad until he sighs, relaxing in to the inevitable. Is he turning in to a sap if he says he finds it a little bit cute that she barely reaches to his shoulder?

"Think we can get her in the car so I can finish examining her?" Morse asks him, holding up a needle for blood taking that Melinda is very much not going to cooperate with! He sighs heavily knowing that he's going to end up being the one trying to reason her in to doing something she doesn't want to - again. 

"Someone else will have to drive Lola, sir," Morse draws to his attention a fact he's been deliberately ignoring in the hopes such becomes miraculously unnecessary. 

He doesn't trust any of them with Lola. But he doesn't trust any of them with Melinda either. Not right now when he needs to be there with her, needs to know she's safe after so nearly losing her so unexpectedly. "Mack," he decides aloud after discounting the other possibilities - Morse he needs for Melinda, Daisy and Fitz will want to stay close for exactly the reasons he does, and there is NO WAY IN THE SEVEN HELLS he is letting Hunter near the wheel!

He lifts Melinda off the hood intending to carry her to the SUV to put her in the car physically rather than begin an argument about it. She suddenly twists in his arms and he helps lower her gently to the ground where she rests her forehead seeking the cool and stability of the floor. "Melinda?"

"I don’t feel very well, Phil," she groans.

"I don’t suppose you would do, no... Do you need to hold on to the floor, Melinda?" He teases their ongoing joke, trying to lighten her mood. (One is not drunk until you have to hold on to the floor whilst lying down to stay attached!)

"I wanna go home, Phil?" She sniffles softly and he’s immediately sorry for trying to tease her when she’s so obviously suffering.

"Yeah, Melinda. I’ll take you home." The thought comes to him then that she’s been staying at her father’s house just outside of this town. It’s going to be nigh on impossible to sneak her back in given the security upgrades she and her mother have made to the place. Her father isn’t exactly oblivious having lived with her mother for so long either. “I don’t think your father will be too pleased when we sneak you back in though...”

“No, Phil. Take me _Home_ ,” she emphasises and rolls up from her prone position to cling to his shirt rather than the pavement, using him as a climbing frame to become almost upright. He holds her to his chest and assists her in standing as he rises himself.

She nods quietly allowing her body to lean against him more heavily as he lifts her to put her in the car, sliding in behind with a last concerned look for Lola before picking her up to settle her across his legs.

“The base?” he checks.

“Home,” she confirms, snuggling against his chest, and oh if his heart doesn’t want to leap at that simple declaration from her lips. Finally, she's coming home.

 

x

 

"I still need her bloods, sir," Morse tells him from her safe position in the front. "I can run them immediately when we get to the lab to work out what was slipped in to her drink." Damn it, as if he doesn't know that Morse.

"You want my blood?" Melinda asks him, her limbs suddenly stiffened in readiness. She hates having her blood taken. Hates needles. Hates medical in any sense full stop. They've sedated her before to get bloods. Regularly take more than necessary if she's already knocked out just so that they can run their variety of additional tests. Shield protocol mandates regular bloods taken as a part of their monthly physical. He knows she always provides her own sample. He doesn't know how she does it. He does know she demands absolute privacy (he assumes to allow herself to break down completely), then sucks it up and gets the job done anyway! She's a little bit amazing like that.

He spares a thought to the idea of having them all pin her down. For all of a second. He knows it's not a sensible proposition. He knows it'd end up dangerous - for them more so than for her. He knows that alright. It's just that he really doesn't want to be the one trying to have to reason with drunk Melinda May again. He wants to whine out loud at the unfairness of it all. But that's something the Director of Shield simply is not allowed to do in front of his agents. Suck it up buttercup!

"Melinda," he sighs. "I do need to stick you with the needle."

"Why?" she demands sharply, eyes narrowed and muscles tense in a threat he senses is only moments away being enacted. He considers lying, but what lie could he convincingly tell that results in her co-operation with a needle and him taking bloods? He thinks of sedating her, but dismisses it almost immediately - they don't want to be introducing anything new to her system until they know what she's been dosed with. Ponders again the possible risks of trying to pin her in place for the few seconds needed. It's too risky. For all of them.

"I need your blood," he decides to admit honestly and tenses himself in preparation, watching her limbs for any hint of the likely attack to preface her intended escape from the situation.

He was not in any manner prepared for her response.

"Vampire! HELP!" Melinda screams, reacting violently until she's twisted around enough to kick him off the seat and in the face! (No laughing! Even if she doesn't have the coordination to land the kick properly it still fucking hurts!) Ffs! Does he really deserve this kind of treatment for trying to help?! "I knew it! I knew you were dead!" She screams down to where he's slid off the seats and is currently sitting uncomfortably sprawled half over Fitz' knees and half in the foot well! 

Then she stops suddenly. Pauses in silence. Her face dropping from anger in to anguish in moments as he watches. A tapestry of pain he wants to reach out and sooth away.

"Melinda?" he asks cautiously as her lower lip trembles. He could get whiplash dealing with Melinda May's emotional responses when drunk.

"You can't be dead again, Phil," she whispers and oh this is so not a conversation that the two of them want to have in front of people. He clambers back up the seats ignoring the usual aches and pains to enfold her in his arms. She collapses against him as he manoeuvres them back to a seated position, her on his lap, his arms holding her securely to him as she cries against his shoulder. Oh Melinda. It breaks his heart to remember what she went through when all believed he had died. How she suffered without him there to comfort her. The guilt tastes bitter in the back of his throat even though he knows rationally there wasn't a great deal he could have done differently.

He motions with a hand to the others to strap them in safely and raises her left arm out to make the veins easily accessible to Morse.

"Don't leave me, Phil," Melinda's voice reaches only his ears to plead so pitifully. "Make me a vampire too and I'll come with you." And there is nothing that humbles him so greatly as hearing that she would willingly give up her life for him, to be with him. Nothing so monumentally humbling or so very terrifying to hear from her lips.

He turns his head to settle atop hers to hide his face against her hair away from far too knowing eyes. Watches as the needle sticks its pinprick in to her arm, drawing forth the necessary blood, and Melinda sighs contentedly against his chest believing the feeling to be something it's very much not. 

He'll deal with this later. 

Later, when there are no studiously averted eyes trying not to invade what should be a private moment between them. 

Later, when she might actually rationalise and understand a word that he says. 

Later... later when he might be able to summon up the courage to tell her he loves her and not worry that she'll just walk away never to return. 

Later. 

Just later.

 

x

 

OMG how did this silly little fic turn into angst on me?! No, no! I will not have it. I refuse. Silliness must resume! This is a silly fic, damn it! ;) Ax


	13. Chapter 13 - Home Again!

Chapter 13 - Home Again

This is soooo not the position he wanted to be in 'later'!

Upside: Melinda's still here.

Upside: Melinda is (sort of) in his arms. We'll come back to the 'sort of.'

Upside: Melinda is (sort of) naked.

Upside: Morse had confirmed the drug she'd been spiked with - some overly complicated name he doesn't recall. Nothing overly dangerous to her system now she was in the company of friends. Nothing likely to have any lasting physical effects.

Upside: Melinda has to spend the night being monitored.

Downside: Morse advised the best thing for Melinda to do was throw up what remained in her stomach and sleep it off.

Sort of upside: Melinda wants to be with him and refuses to be left to spend the night being monitored in medical.

Major downside: Melinda is therefore in his bathroom throwing up everything she's drunk the entire night, eaten the previous day, and retching repeatedly even when there's little left to come up. 

She's had flittering moments between being too hot (the shower ice cold for the minutes she sits there looking like a drowned rat) and shivering with cold (whilst he wraps her thoroughly in warm towels, his robe on top and smothers her against his chest). She's currently hovering around a clammy warm, therefore naked, level as the solution Morse has forced upon her seems to take dramatic effect. Repeatedly.

Which brings him on to the 'sort of' being in his arms as he sits squashed in beside her and the toilet, the cold of the floor tiles seeping through into his bones as he alternates between holding her hair as she tries to hurl (and he tries desperately not to!) and leaning back against the solid wall allowing her to curl up on his chest, a pathetic whimpering mess that he can't help but feel sorry for. He really hates seeing her suffer. He can’t believe he ever thought it was a good thing that she was drunk out there alone, without him. He should have been there. 

But if he had, then right now they'd probably both be drunkenly arguing about who was to have possession of the glorious porcelain bowl as they hurled in turns... or they'd still be out there embroiled in a potential shoot out situation neither had the mental capacity to sort... or maybe they'd have brought about some sense in the other and avoided the situation entirely. 

Pfft. Who's he kidding?! They'd have been worse together! They'd have snuck back to her father's house and suffered Mrs May's frostiness and punishment chores the morning thereafter. Just like old times.

She struggles against his arms urgently and he releases her swiftly, assisting to push her bodily upright and over the toilet bowl as she tries yet again to bring up contents that are no longer there. Morse's ipecac leaves a lot to be desired.

Melinda slumps against him, boneless and exhausted.

"Take me to bed, Phil?" she whispers without opening her eyes. He's too tired to even make a joke at her choice of wording. Just bundles her up in his robe and carries her to his bed, grateful that at least for the moment he can stretch out aching muscles and move off the freezing cold floor.

"Hold me, Phil," she demands quietly, hands buried in his wet shirt when he tries to draw away to pull the comforter up around her.

It's not a hardship to agree, to promise to be back in a moment. Give himself time to set the necessary alarms and alerts. He doesn't just cease to be Director because she needs him after all. He locates pain meds for her, setting them with a glass of water on the bedside ready for morning or if she wakes sooner in need of them. Sits a bowl to the floor just in case. 

In between losing his shirt and pants, he taps a quick update to Morse, assuming she remains awake. Considers for a moment finding a t-shirt to sleep in, to hide the scar. He dismisses the thought, she's already seen it. She won't care. She will, however, call him on it if he wears a t-shirt to hide it. He sighs and drops the pad on the bedside table. It's not worth the argument. All he wants to do is crawl in to bed to sleep and hold her.

He raises the cover to slip neatly inside, trying not to disturb her where she rests. She's across the distance and crawling into his arms before he's consciously aware that she's still awake, his arms opening subconsciously to let her lie across his chest, her legs slotting perfectly between his own as though she was made for him as her head makes a pillow of his shoulder. 

"Don't let me go, Phil," she whispers as she drifts to sleep in his arms.

He wraps his arms tighter around her small form in a silent promise and lets his eyes fall closed, prays that out of everything she remembers this part. 

 

 

x


	14. Epilogue - Who ya gonna call?

Epilogue - Who ya gonna call?

 

That she's gone in the morning before he wakes is not a surprise.

Heart wrenching, sure... but not a surprise.

His room shows no sign of her having stayed over even that evening: her clothes are vanished from the floor where she’d carelessly heaped them, her recently fixed phone absent from the nightstand, the charging cable lying abandoned in its place, and two white pills sit starkly on the nightstand without their accompanying glass of water – a frustrating testament to her persistent refusal to take medication even when she ought. 

His arms empty and the bed cold beside him.

He walks his morning routines in a disappointed daze, barely noticing the strange looks his distraction garners from colleagues. Barely caring if they wonder or know of the cause. The pursed lips and laughing eyes of those few who were party to their night time excursion he pointedly ignores – let them smirk, he’s no energy to defend against the intended teasing.

He’s so caught up in his own disappointment that he probably shouldn’t be surprised that it takes him until midday to figure out that the looks have more to do with Melinda than the previous night...

It’s really not fair that though she was the drunk (and then soundly sleeping) one, he is somehow still the one that has ended up with Harry Potter style glasses and a Hitler moustache doodled carelessly across his face!!!

The text message tone of his phone interrupts his furious scrubbing at exactly the wrong moment - an elephant dancing a jig across his screen he’s little humour left to appreciate, dragging behind it the scrolled words: _”And you call yourself a spy...”_ Short of a target he glares at his red faced reflection in the mirror. Damn her for not being here.

A second overly cheery tone demands he cast his eyes back to the screen, simple text changing his outlook decisively, igniting a small hope that draws a smile finally back to his lips:

_"I'll come home soon."_

 

... and maybe that's all her ever wanted to hear her say.

 

x

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of another one... thanks to all who have pushed me along on this silly little fic. Your comments have meant the world to the shy and overly self-critical person sitting anonymously this end of the keyboard. They really have.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be many more chapters because lets face it a drunk Melinda May can only ever be a fun thing to mess around with!
> 
> And she has so many things to say to Phil that she'd probably never actually verbalise when sober so... yeah... just need to get them all written out. :)
> 
> There will certainly be singing- badly - Daisy, Daisy...
> 
> Any ideas, let me know!
> 
> A  
> x


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